Working to make it OK

Lewis, co-owner of Lewis Jewelers Inc., spent last Monday afternoon huddled with his staff in the walk-in vault of his store in Moore, Okla., praying the tornado ripping through town would spare those he loved.

His prayers were answered.

Lewis said as the storm approached that afternoon they turned the store’s flat-screen TV to the news.

The meteorologist on the local ABC affiliate, for whom the jeweler just made an engagement ring, began naming specific businesses that lay in the tornado’s path at that point. Lewis Jewelers was among them.

“He just threw out my name. I am sure it’s because he knows me,” Lewis said.

But when the mile-and-a-half wide, EF5 tornado touched down at little past 3 p.m., it veered just north of the store. Lewis’ home was spared as well, as were the homes of his 16 employees.

The jeweler did lose a slightly under-insured warehouse full of production equipment but is counting his blessings nonetheless.

“I am fine. I am blessed guy,” he said. “If that (the loss of the warehouse) is the price I have to pay, that’s nothing.”

Other people in Moore were not so lucky, a fact of which Lewis is very aware, as is his brother and store co-owner Glenn Lewis. Twenty-four people lost their lives and many more were left homeless.

(If the name Glenn Lewis sounds familiar, it’s with good reason. He’s been the mayor for this Oklahoma City suburb of about 55,000 for 19 years and through four major tornadoes, and has been all over the media for the last week, including being photographed with President Obama when he came to survey the damage.)

Tim Lewis said that one of the areas  the tornado destroyed was a lower-income neighborhood, prompting the store to start collecting money for those who were under-insured or have no insurance at all.

“A lot of those people need help,” he said.

Lewis isn’t the only local jeweler willing to lend a hand. Via another jeweler’s share on Facebook, I learned about Oklahoma jeweler Meigs Jewelry donating proceeds from the sale of this $49 Oklahoma pin to storm victims.

When I called another jewelry store in Moore last week, Diamond Dee-Lite, an answering machine picked up and told callers that the store would be happy to clean or check their jewelry and also would work to reunite people with their jewelry