Story at a glance
- Tammy Gordy, 56, and her husband Steve lost their home in Agency, Iowa in a 2001 tornado.
- Now Gordy has won the Iowa Lottery’s $2 million Powerball prize.
- She says she plans on finishing building her new house, with some extra amenities.
CLIVE, Iowa (WHO) – An Ottumwa woman who lost her home in a 2001 tornado has won the Iowa Lottery’s $2 million Powerball prize.
Tammy Gordy, 56, and her husband Steve lived in Agency in 2001 when the community was damaged by a tornado. The Gordys lost their home in that storm.
Tammy told the Iowa Lottery that she plans to use her winnings to finish building their new home.
“We were in the process of building a home and it kind of got put on hold for a few years, so now this is going to speed it up,” she said. “And it’s going to go into better details. I’m talking a walk-in closet and a Jacuzzi tub!”
Tammy purchased her ticket at the Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh in the 1000 block of North Quincy Ave. in Ottumwa. Her ticket matched the first five numbers but missed the Powerball in Saturday’s drawing. Tammy added the Power Play, which multiplied her winnings to $2 million.
“I fell to my chair,” she said, recounting the moment she realized she had won. “I couldn’t see! There were all those zeroes!”
Hy-Vee will receive a $2,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
Tammy was the first of three big lottery winners in Iowa in a 48-hour period. The two others were an InstaPlay jackpot of almost $400,000 in Cascade and a $1 million Mega Millions prize in Davenport. Both prizes have yet to be claimed, the Iowa Lottery said.
There are nine ways to win a prize in Powerball, ranging from $4 to the jackpot. Your overall odds of winning any prize is 1 in 24.9, according to Powerball. The odds of matching five numbers, without the Powerball, is 1 in 11.7 million, and the odds of hitting the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
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