San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)

Homes in Texas, Oklahoma hit by tornado cluster

- By Jake Bleiberg

POWDERLY, Texas — Residents in northeaste­rn Texas and southeaste­rn Oklahoma began assessing the damage Saturday after tornadoes tore across the region, killing at least one, injuring others and leaving homes and buildings in ruins.

Shelbie Villalpand­o, 27, of Powderly, said she was eating dinner with her family Friday when tornado sirens prompted them to shelter first in their rented home’s hallways, then with her children, aged 5, 10 and 14, in the bathtub.

“Within two minutes of getting them in the bathtub, we had to lay over the kids because everything started going crazy,” Villalpand­o said.

“I’ve never been so terrified,” she said. “I could hear glass breaking and things shattering around, but whenever I got out of the bathroom, my heart and my stomach sank because I have kids and it could have been much worse . ... What if our bathroom had caved in just like everything else? We wouldn’t be here.”

Terimaine Davis and his son were huddled in the bathtub until just before the tornado barreled through Friday, reducing their home in Powderly to a roofless, sagging heap.

“We left like five minutes before the tornado actually hit,” Davis said. “Me and my son were in the house in the tub and that was about the only thing left standing.”

In their driveway Saturday morning, a child’s car seat leaned against a dented, grey Chevrolet sedan with several windows blown out. Around back, his wife, Lori Davis, handed Terimaine a basket of toiletries from inside the wreckage of their house.

The couple and the three kids who live with them did not have renter’s insurance, Lori Davis said, and none of their furniture survived. “We’re going to have to start from scratch,” she said.

They hope to stay with family until they can find a place to live. “The next few days look like rough times,” Terimaine Davis said.

One man was killed as a result of the storm across the state line near Pickens, Okla., according to Keli Cain, spokespers­on for the state’s Department of Emergency Management.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt toured the town of Idabel on Saturday morning, Cain said.

“There’s a lot of damage,” in the town of about 7,000, Cain said. “There are well over 100 homes and businesses damaged from minor damage to totally destroyed.”

Judge Brandon Bell, the highest elected official in Lamar County where Powderly is located, declared a disaster in the area, a step in getting federal assistance and funding. Bell’s declaratio­n said at least two dozen people were injured across the county.

Powderly is about 45 miles west of Idabel and about 120 miles northeast of Dallas near the Texas-Oklahoma border.

The National Weather Service in Fort Worth confirmed three tornadoes — in Lamar, Henderson and Hopkins counties — Friday night as a line of storms dropped rain and sporadic hail on the Dallas-Forth Worth area and continued to push eastward.

The weather service’s office said it was assessing the damage in Oklahoma.

Weather service meteorolog­ist Bianca Garcia said while peak severe weather season typically is in the spring, tornadoes occasional­ly develop in the fall.

 ?? LM Otero/Associated Press ?? Fred Davis talks to his daughter on a cell phone as he describes how a tornado splintered his home in Powderly, Texas. Tornadoes also smashed homes across the state line in Oklahoma.
LM Otero/Associated Press Fred Davis talks to his daughter on a cell phone as he describes how a tornado splintered his home in Powderly, Texas. Tornadoes also smashed homes across the state line in Oklahoma.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States