I sure hope everyone rode out the storms ok…
Matt
I’m not from Texas, but I heard the news about the tornados. I’m wishing you from there all the best.
Houston just got a bit of rain but nothing serious, The problems were in north Texas, Dallas and vicinities…
TexasLumens got hit with storms and power outages up in Amarillo, we just had some winds and rain down here in the heartland.
The tornadoes were about an hour east of me. They had been forecasting severe whether for our area for days. 100% chance of rain that morning they said. We had absolutely nothing in the morning. Finally late afternoon the cap started to break over the metroplex and storms started. Got a little bit of hail at my house along with strong winds and rain but nothing life threatening.
I was actually trying to drive home THROUGH Emory/Canton last night right when the tornados came through. The big one was right alongside us. When we tried to turn off onto highway 80, we had to turn back because the tornado had just crossed the road and a semi was overturned blocking the road, along with cars in the ditches and houses blown down. We finally had to turn back and drive back into the storm looking for an alternate route. Started encountering hail so we stopped under the awning at the Emory Sonic for shelter. We ended up driving all the way back North and spent the extra night at my in-law’s house since we couldn’t get back home. They live directly in the path of the tornado, but fortunately, it had broken up by the time it got so far North. They lost a tree in their yard, but no other damage. It was devastating on the ride home this morning though, especially in the town of Fruitvale where we had turned back the night before. Houses destroyed, power lines still down, and lots of vehicles that had been blown off the road.
Mother Nature can sure be a bitch sometimes…
Thankfully, I can only imagine. Never had to live through anything like that.
This isn’t my video, but shows the view we had… Look at the 3:15 Mark to see the Fruitvale destruction on 80 that kept us from going further.
Prayers go out to all those involved…
Thats to close Keltex78, glad your ok.
We’re kinda in the center of a triangle, Lindale, Mineola, Van. The news was tracking rotation a few miles west, but I guess nothing touched down there. The big stuff was several more miles west.
The lightning count was pretty incredible @ 3000 strikes over 30 minutes.
The long track nearly due North was paralleling Hwy. 19 where we were traveling South. We went through it South of Lake Fork right between Emory and Hwy. 80.
Worst storm I’ve ever seen, much less, ever driven in…
I always been a fan of extreme weather, but that’s easy to say sitting in little old Denmark
If i ever get to do my grand American tour i do hope to see a tornado myself, but if it is one of those that just plow up some fields i would be happy.
Glad that so far all of us came through OK. I’ve been through an F-0 and an F-1 and it is the spookiest thing I’ve ever lived through. Not something I care to experience again.
Phil
I was in the line of fire of the F5 that hit Jarrell, saw it turn from a twisting finger like a rope into a mile wide wall of destruction. Went over there after it passed, when I got off work, and that valley looked like someone declared war. Some 40 houses completely gone. Not even bottom plates left on the slabs, no plumbing stacks coming out of the concrete, just smooth concrete slabs where houses stood just a couple of hours before. It took the street. It took their grass (yards) any cars that might have been in a driveway, gone. Think about that, 40+ refrigerators, washer and dryers, dishwashers, the valley was stripped in an unbelievable manner. The experts said the damages showed winds in excess of 300mph. There were horses found wrapped around telephone poles, every bone in their body crushed. I forget a lot of things, but having been a carpenter and built quite a few houses I’ll never forget how that F5 stripped everything.
A farm with trailers on stand by for the grain harvest had the trailers sucked over half a mile from the side, dragged, leaving skid marks in the soil, into the storm and gone. The almost ready to harvest grain fields? Stripped bare. Entire fields of grain, bare dirt. This is big fields, many many acres of wheat, simply vanished. Some cows were found piled in a ravine about 14 miles further along, with wheat needles embedded in their thick hides.
It’s purely a miracle every family in all those homes wasn’t taken.
My cousin and I were building cabinets in his little barn/shop, just NorthWest of Salado, about 7 miles from Jarrell. He’s from Virginia, didn’t know what to expect. His family and visiting brother were wanting to hide in the house. I was outside watching, ready to take evasive action. The clouds were swirling every which way over head, if it’d came down right on top of us of course, we wouldn’t have had a chance. It skipped over Stillhouse Lake and came back down as that twisted rope, then the rains got so heavy we lost sight of it, even as it went a mile wide. Radio reports and alarm sirens alerted us to what was going on.
Edit: Looking back at some articles from the May, 1997 F5, my memory on how many homes were destroyed is not correct. There were, however 27 fatalaties, virtually all inside homes that were severely destroyed or completely vanished. It is said in these articles that the ground destruction was so severe that plant/vegetation was eradicated up to 18 inches deep in the soil. A wide swath of bare dirt was left, totally devoid of anything that existed before, be it telephone poles or trees or cars homes wreckers, whatever. It was said that this storm was not survivable above ground.