Woman killed by fallen tree from tornado
Uprooted trees damage homes; more rain forecast this weekend
A tornado knocks pine trees into a dozen manufactured homes in a Tomballarea subdivision, leaving one woman dead.
Hours after heavy winds from a tornado early Wednesday knocked 60-foot-tall pine trees into about a dozen manufactured homes in a Tomball area subdivision and left one woman dead, neighbors helped one another do what they could to clean up debris.
They sawed off the branches that had smashed into windows, taken out roofing and splintered plywood. But the residents would need outside help removing 4foot wide tree trunks that caused the most damage when they crashed into their properties.
The National Weather Service confirmed Wednesday’s early thunderstorms spurred a weak tornado, known as an EF-0, east of Tomball, with winds reaching up to 52 mph. The weather service was still assessing whether a tornado struck as well in Willis.
Power to tens of thousands of customers was knocked out in northwest Harris County and parts of Montgomery County. The stormy weather caused roadways in Montgomery County to be blocked and led to school closures in Willis and Montgomery Independent School districts.
This round of weatherrelated damage came a little more than a week after severe storms dumped 17 inches of rain, left eight dead and thousands of homes flooded across the Houston metro area.
According to the National Weather Service, another round of severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall could return between Friday and Sunday. Given the saturated soil, flooding and downed trees again could pose potential hazards as they did Wednesday.
Eric Wolanin, a resident of the small Willow Oaks subdivision, speculated that perhaps it was the soggy, drenched earth that made it easier for towering trees to be so easily uprooted.
This was the second time Wolanin’s home has been damaged by a collapsed tree. The first happened during Hurricane Ike when a sweetgum came crashing through his home. This time, a cedar landed on his home’s ramp, striking just 2 feet away from his face when he opened his front door Wednesday morning. At least cedar trees have lighter, smaller branches, he said.
He first awoke to a combination of his morning alarm and a bright flash of light from a tree that struck a power line around 4:45 a.m.
Branches pierced his home’s ceiling and some of the side windows, but Wolanin hoped after removing debris he would be able to repair most of the damage himself, with some help from his Home Depot coworkers. After Wednesday’s stormy episode, one change was imminent.
“No more trees in the backyard now,” he said. After surveying his home and putting buckets in place to collect water, he went for a walk.
“I’m on the verge of tired and not tired,” he said. He drank three Java Monster energy drinks that morning. Phone alert
Down the street, a handful of boys kicked around a soccer ball while neighbors helped saw off some of the branches splitting Dorian Hernandez’s home in two.
She received a weather alert on her phone at 4:29 a.m. and woke up to see tree branches falling inside her bedroom.
She ran to the bathroom with her brother and sister-in-law, and the three of them lay flat on the ground.
Her father, Alfonso, hurt his back when a refrigerator fell on him.
“He has bad scratches and it hurts a lot, but we have a tree in the middle of our house so he’s pulling through it,” Hernandez, 20, said.
One man dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a black T-shirt and black baseball cap wielded an electric chainsaw from his perch 10 feet in the air, atop the trunk that smashed through the Hernandez home.
He cut off branches while other neighbors picked them up and made a pile alongside the road.
Hernandez looked at the gaping hole in her home, the air-conditioning unit hanging outside the front exterior wall. She lived down the street from the 62-year-old woman who died in her home Wednesday morning, apparently when her roof collapsed in on her from a falling tree. Her identity hasn’t been released.
Hernandez thought she lived alone and only moved into the area about six months ago.
After the yellow crime scene tape came down once the woman’s body was transported by medical examiners, neighbors walked down the street to capture videos and photos of the damage with their cellphones.
In front of the woman’s home was a parked Honda CRV just inches away from the downed tree trunk, without a visible scratch. Other areas hit
Houston and its surrounding regions weren’t the only areas affected by this week’s weather.
The National Weather Service confirmed that three tornadoes hit Grayson County in North Texas Tuesday night and carried winds between 85-90 mph. The Associated Press reported five people were reportedly injured in that storm.
Confirmed tornadoes also touched down in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Okla. while grapefruit-sized hail fell in northern Kansas on Tuesday, added the wire service.