a victory lottery ticket, worth nearly $2 millionlanded in the hands of an Iowa woman whose home was destroyed by tornadoes 20 years ago, officials said Thursday.
Tammy Gordya 56-year-old dietary aide from Ottumwa, bought the life-changing Powerball ticket Saturday at a Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh, Iowa Lottery Vice President Mary Neubauer said.
Gordy had just finished breakfast on Sunday when she began cleaning out her purse and spending several weeks of lottery tickets using the Iowa Lottery’s mobile app.
Amid the lost tickets, the app told him the Powerball ticket he picked up Saturday was worth $2 million.
Tammy Gordy.Iowa Lottery
“I fell into my chair,” Gordy said interview with Iowa Lottery. “I couldn’t see! There were all those zeros! I was like, ‘Maybe I need my glasses.’ So yeah, we screamed.”
Steve Gordy said his wife suddenly lost her command of English at the time.
“He wasn’t sure what to think when he first looked at her and he jumped up and said, well, not in English, just other words that he couldn’t understand,” recalled the repair shop owner d automobiles “Then I looked up, and it was a lot of zeroes.”
The couple’s stroke of luck came a little more than 22 years after their home The agency was destroyed when a series of tornadoes devastated communities in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas on April 10 and 11, 2001.
“We were in the process of building a house and it got put on hold for a few years, so now it’s going to speed it up,” Tammy Gordy said.
“And it will go into more detail! I’m talking about a dressing room and a jacuzzi! That’s what I’m talking about!”
The couple has been renting since losing their home, and the $2 million prize will go toward their new home under construction in Ottumwa, according to Neubauer.
Gordy took home $1.42 million this week: the $2 million prize minus $480,000 in 24 percent federal withholding and $100,000 short of a 5 percent Iowa tax.
He bought just one ticket on Saturday with randomly selected numbers and got all five regular numbers, but not the final Powerball.
If Gordy had gone 6 for 6, that ticket would have been worth $424 million.
