Rowlett tornado

As some of you know, Gabkwong and I live in Rowlett. The tornado miss me by half a mile and missed Gabkwong by ONE block. He has minor exterior damage to his home and probably needs a new roof. One block west of Gabkwong there were houses completely leveled.

We both feel very fortunate. The tornado made a path from the intersection of I-30 and George Bush tollway and went to the northeast. Several people were killed driving on I-30 very near where Nails lives in Garland (he was not home at the time).

Please keep the people who were affected by the storm in your thoughts and prayers.

Let us know if there is anything yall need.

I was thinking about y'all...glad you're relatively unscathed. The damage I saw on TV is some of the worst I've seen in a long time.

Glad you're both okay. Thoughts and prayers to the ones who didn't.

Scary stuff. Be safe during the cleanup, which can be dangerous as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by motorollow

As some of you know, Gabkwong and I live in Rowlett. The tornado miss me by half a mile and missed Gabkwong by ONE block. He has minor exterior damage to his home and probably needs a new roof. One block west of Gabkwong there were houses completely leveled.

We both feel very fortunate. The tornado made a path from the intersection of I-30 and George Bush tollway and went to the northeast. Several people were killed driving on I-30 very near where Nails lives in Garland (he was not home at the time).

Please keep the people who were affected by the storm in your thoughts and prayers.

---

Glad you guys are both OK. We also lucked out, with several total loss houses just about 1000 feet from us. For those that have been to my house before, the leveled gas station and feed store in Copeville that has been shown on the news is where the fireworks stands were on 78 about 1/2 mile north of the street for my neighborhood.

^Glad y'all are OK too Titus. Crazy weather indeed.

Wow Todd, were y'all home?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rogue

Wow Todd, were y'all home?

---

Yep... I have to admit, we did not really take things that seriously at the time. We were following it on the news as they were saying it was over Rowlett, and then the power went out. It quickly got the generator up and running, but it took me about 10 minutes to get the TV on again because I had to poach extension cords from the Christmas lights. During that 10 minutes, there was no wind at all. We were not really concerned because the last thing we heard the news say was warning people in Lucas and Saint Paul (across the lake from us) to be prepared. Once the Dish receiver finally booted up, they were talking about our area. I opened the front door to find it was suddenly REALLY windy. Just minutes later, it was calm again and we started hearing non-stop emergency vehicle sounds and seeing reports of crazy damage come in via Facebook. I hopped in the car to go see if I could help, but they had barricaded our street so we couldn't get out. They manged to get our power back on after about 4 hours, which is really amazing given that the streets east and north of us are still without power and there are downed power lines all over the place.

I attached a map with the blue dot being on my street, and red Xs over structures that were destroyed based on what I saw once I was able to get out and about yesterday.
http://www.dfwmiata.com/attachment.p...7&d=1451341102

Gabkwong is having real bad luck this week. Uninsured motorist rearended his Honda CRV today, and the driver just ran off and left the car they were driving.

Glad everyone is OK, if any help is needed be sure and post up and I am sure several of us would respond.......

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by motorollow

Gabkwong is having real bad luck this week. Uninsured motorist rearended his Honda CRV today, and the driver just ran off and left the car they were driving.

---

That stinks. It sounds like he will be spending a lot of time with his insurance company. Hopefully they treat him well.

Glad to hear everyone made it through safely. I have some former co-workers who weren't so lucky. Their house was leveled and they lost their animals. They weren't home at the time, and weren't able to get back in and survey the damage until yesterday.

Thanks everyone! Finally finished cleaning up the property and did some minor repairs. Power finally back up yesterday around lunch time. I am lucky. the house only need a new roof, some siding, part of the fence, all the window screens, a new refrigerator-full of food and a new mail box! Both house behind me have 2X4's and 2X6's went through the brick exterior walls and wedged into the structures. I have pieces of 2x4 and quarter sheet of roofing ply woods in my front and back yards. An 1 feet by 2 feet ply wood embed in the mud of my back yard that I have to dig it out. The house on my west side have front window all blown in. Actually, the houses less than 200 yards west of me and one block north of me are all totaled! I think we are really lucky considering what could have been!

We heard the siren went off a couple times for less than half a minutes. We thought it is possibly ok and went on watching football. Until my son called his friends in Dallas to go out in the evening and was told to stay home because tornado was in Dallas. We tuned into TV news. All they were talking and repeating useless info about Dallas. I saw a couple separate shot of the radar and notice the famous "hook signature" was increase in Mesquite. We again heard the siren went off for 30 seconds. We all went into the inside bathroom right the way with pillows on top of our head. Less than half a minute we start hearing the "train" sound which lasted no more than 15 seconds. There was no more siren and everything very quite. We than went out into the street to check for damage. Fire trucks showed up 15 minutes later. It was very dark but I could see roofs gone, houses completely leveled and houses missing the top floor or a couple of the exterior walls gone. Some of them you can see the rooms inside from the street.

BTW, if you have an winter clothing, household items or anything, please take them to the donation centers near you. So many people lost everything! I have seen so many houses nothing was left to salvage!