Thursday's Texas Tornado Aftermath

The Big Storm that roared through North Texas late Wednesday and in the wee hours of Thursday morning brought at least 5 tornadoes, including several that struck Breckinridge late Wednesday. Survey teams checked out the damage and issued the EF ratings for the tornadoes. 4 or more were EF1's. The assessment process continues. An EF1 tornado whips up winds between 86 and 110 mph.

So far the only known injury was to a Johnson County man who lost his arm when the trailer he was in was turned over and over in the high wind. In the photo you see here the trailer was spared, which totally goes against the norm, while the tied to a foundation building was badly damaged.

Several houses were seriously damaged in Johnson County.

About 5 miles north of my abode, in the town of Hurst, straight line winds up to 80mph damaged more than 200 homes.

At Oakland Lake Park, yesterday, I saw several trees blown down, including a long-lived Mulberry Tree. It was sort of additionally tragic because only a couple days ago did the park maintennance people finally get around to removing tree limbs they'd piled up all over the park last month after doing extensive tree trimming. And now they've got a way way worse mess to clean up.

I don't know if it's irony or what, but in Haltom City, that's about 5 miles northwest of where I am, students at an Institute of Massage were in the middle of their finals when Mother Nature massaged holes in the roof and blasted out windows, distracting the test takers. I don't quite understand why they were taking a massage test in the early morning of Thursday. Maybe the earlier storm hit just north of me and I didn't notice.

In Southlake, that's up by Lake Grapevine, the school board called an emergency meeting to figure out what do to about the damaged school building, with broken gas lines, ruined air conditioners and a destroyed stadium scoreboard. They decided to open school as usual, with no lunch, due to no gas.

Apartment buildings were damaged in Bedford, that's a little town next to Hurst, moving four families out til the damage can be repaired.

Today the sky is blue, the temps are warm. And I managed to sleep a couple hours.