Posted 2:34 am Saturday, October 10, 2009
Storms Sweep Through East Texas
By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer And
DANNY MOGLE
Assistant Managing Editor
Staff Writer And
DANNY MOGLE
Assistant Managing Editor
A line of powerful storms left hundreds in the dark, ripped a roof off a high-rise apartment complex and destroyed and damaged homes across East Texas early Friday morning.
Paula Perez, manager of the Travis Towers Apartments in Jacksonville, braved a driving rain early Friday as she and maintenance man John Wingate covered the roof of the six story building with tarps.
"I'm too old to be up here on the roof putting down a tarp, but this just goes to show you a manager's work isn't always in the office," she said.
Inside the apartment building, which houses senior citizens, handicapped and disabled persons, fire alarms rang out and strobe lights continued to flash.
On top of the building a large section of the roof was torn off before falling onto a lower level of the building and into the street.
"A resident woke me up this morning saying their window had busted in the storm. When I got up and started looking around the building I saw all of the debris," she said.
Ms. Perez said the building holds 95 residents and some may have to be relocated while repairs are made.
Roofs of several buildings in Jacksonville were damaged.
In Longview, the situation was far worse. Police barricaded a neighborhood on the east section of the city due to heavy damage and downed power lines.
Chainsaws buzzed as tree trimmer crews worked to clean the debris. Some residents gathered belongings to prepare for a stay with relatives or in a local motel until repairs could be completed.
Larry Sims joked saying he had a low mileage Toyota pickup for sale for a good price. The only problem was a large oak tree crushed the truck in half.
Sims and his son Friday placed tarps on the home on Audrey in the Longview Heights subdivision.
"I felt the house start vibrating before the trees fell down. They are saying it wasn't a tornado, but they were not here when it was going on," he said.
A few houses away, Janice Mitchell stood in the rain as a team of workers continued removing a large tree that damaged the front of her home.
"For about 30 seconds there was just this whirling sound and then I heard what sounded like a limb rolling off the roof," Mrs. Mitchell said. "It was definitely a surprise."
The situation could have been worse. The tree that fell got caught up in another tree instead of crashing through the roof.
At 703 Tullie, Konie Thompson wasn't as fortunate. Three huge trees crashed onto her home.
The downed trees left the guest bathroom in shambles. A limb was poking through her living room and a trashcan was catching water pouring through another hole.
"We can't stay here," Mrs. Thompson said as she moved through the home pointing out other damage near the ceiling.
When the storm struck, Mrs. Thompson said she and her husband, Curtis, were getting ready for work.
"There was this big boom," she said, recalling how they then checked on the safety of their daughters and began surveying the damage.
Officials with the National Weather Service said there was no tornadic activity suspected in the area and that straight line winds toppled the trees.
An official with the Shreveport NWS office said across 48 counties in four states there were hundreds of homes damaged by trees falling.
