CARRIZO SPRINGS, TX – Lifelong residents of the Dimmit County town called it the worst storm they’ve ever seen.
It’s been three months since straight-line winds tore through Carrizo Springs, ripping up the heart of the business district, and people there are finally seeing signs of progress.
An “open” signs lights up the door at the Fifth Street Boutique.
"Remember, we didn't have a door when you were here last,” owner Lydia Saenz tells News 4.
With its new clothes and a new look, it’s easy to forget it wasn’t that long ago when Saenz’s dreams came crumbling down.
"It still kind of makes me want to cry,” she says while thinking of the late June storm. "It looked like a war zone: glass everywhere, mannequins everywhere."
Three months later, the mannequins weathered the storm and so did Carrizo Springs.
"I'd say every building downtown had some kind of wind damage,” Bobby Mirick with Triple-R Construction says.
Thanks to good old-fashioned elbow grease, step by step, local businesses are reopening.
"Eventually we're going to get to all of them I think,” Mirick says.
With businesses getting spruced up everywhere you look, it's like the storm is still sending a jolt through downtown.
"I think it's going to revitalize it,” Mirick says. “We've had numerous people come by and say thanks. It's taken the old and made it new again."
Take, for example, a 100-year-old cash register inside the boutique.
"When I bought the building this came with it,” Saenz says. "I think it came out of an old service station."
Get this: Saenz says not even the straight-line winds could budge the battered beauty.
"It means we're strong -- both this register and me,” she says with a laugh.
It’s yet another sign Carrizo Springs is back in business.
