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Marco's Pizza employees called heroes for efforts when tornado hit Point Place

The chain pizza restaurant is the only business that's open in the plaza on Ottawa River Road. Its walk-in fridge became the shelter when the tornado hit.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Amid stories of devastation and courage as community members work to clean up areas impacted by Thursday's tornadoes, another story of heroism was shown as a Marco's Pizza in Point Place sheltered people in its walk-fridge during the storms.

The chain pizza restaurant is the only business that's open in the plaza on Ottawa River Road it sits on.

The moment employees realized the severity of Thursday's storms, they jumped in to keep everyone safe.

"It was a typical day until the power went out," employee Erica Donovan said. "Once the power went out we kind of thought it was odd."

The sky looked ominous, too.

"This black cloud came out of nowhere and winds started picking up," Senior Director of Operations Rob Crockett said.

The impact was sudden. But standing tall, through it all, was Marco's Pizza.

"Signs are blown out, windows are missing, and here's Marco's; steadfast and a beacon of light for the community. Which we have been for 30-plus years," Crockett said.

The building, like many other homes and businesses in the area, had some damage. But safety was the only thing team members were worried about last Thursday.

"Our main goal definitely is to protect the customers especially when a customer is coming in hurt," Donovan said. "That's when we realized for a second. But when you wear Marco's, we definitely want to make sure the customers we have are safe."

Donovan is one of the team members who saw the winds picking up and rushed to make sure people in the area had somewhere to shelter. Crockett said she's a hero.

"I'm extremely proud of the human aspect that they thought of others. They wanted to save and protect others. It's work ethic and you can't teach that," Crockett said.

But Donovan wouldn't consider herself a hero, just someone who wanted to help out and make sure the people were safe.

"Knowing that everybody is safe, nobody was severely injured has been something that's been really positive," Donovan said.

Almost all of the employees live in the area and some of them had damage to their car or home.

Marco's has a program called "slice of support," which helps team members during a natural disaster and they will be able to get financial support through this program.

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