Cleanup After East Texas Storm Damages 100 Homes

A daunting job of damage assessment and cleanup confronted a tiny East Texas town of Edom, Texas, on April 27 after a suspected tornado roared through, damaging than 100 homes and injuring at least one person.

The storm slammed through the area 75 miles east of Dallas near the town of Edom.

One woman was injured when her mobile home was rolled by the storm, leaving it in a pile of debris. A video shot by the Tyler Morning Telegraph showed emergency responders covering the injured woman to shield her from rain and hail.

Fire Chief Eddie Allen said he did not have the woman’s identity, and East Texas Medical Center declined to release a condition without that information.

The suspected tornado left a 1-mile-wide, 8-mile-long path of destruction from Edom north, Allen said.

At daybreak on April 27, residents on the outskirts of the small, rural community started to clear up the damage from the storm. The area was littered with uprooted trees, some had split in half and others landed on homes.

Rhonda Modesitt, 45, said she and her 15-year-old son watched the tornado approach their duplex.

“You could see lumber and stuff swirling in it,” Modesitt said as she swept up broken glass from patio furniture that was smashed in the storm. “You could hear it coming through and then it got real still.”

More than 6,700 customers of electric provider Oncor remained without power Wednesday, mainly in East Texas, due to the sweeping storms.

“We have major destruction,” said Chuck Allen, Van Zandt County emergency management spokesman. “We have multiple houses damaged or destroyed … easily 100-plus.”

An outbreak of tornadoes has pounded East and Central Texas in the past two days, and several states endured a second straight night of violent weather on the night of April 26, just a day after a series of powerful storms in killed 10 people in Arkansas and one in Mississippi.

The National Weather Service issued a high risk warning for severe weather in a stretch extending from northeast of Memphis to just northeast of Dallas and covering a large swath of Arkansas. It last issued such a warning on April 16, when dozens of tornadoes hit North Carolina and killed 21 people.

In Central Texas, witnesses said a tornado struck Groesbeck, the Limestone County seat about 90 miles south of Dallas.

County emergency officials did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press, but Groesbeck resident Lisa Alewine said she saw the twister sweep down Texas 14, the north-south main street of the town of 4,300 residents.

“The tornado went right down it, causing damage to the courthouse, churches and businesses,” she wrote in an email. “I have friend who lived on (Route) 14 with damage to her car and home, and another whose awning was torn from her home. A friend’s business was hard hit and has quite a bit of damage.”

The Groesbeck Volunteer Fire Department was also damaged.

After striking East Texas, the storms continued late into the night in Central Texas. More than a dozen tornadoes were reported in those areas.

While the violent weather is not unusual for a Texas spring, the duration of it is, National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Martello said.

Numerous different elements are combining to cause the storms, including a stagnant weather pattern with moist air and an upper level disturbance, Martello said.

Associated Press writer Terry Wallace in Dallas contributed to this report.