CARRIZO SPRINGS, TX – Cleanup is underway in Carrizo Springs after a strong storm blew through early Wednesday morning, ripping out trees and damaging buildings.
Fortunately, no one was hurt as the straight-line winds tore through town.
The storm hit in the dark of night. It knocked out power and cell reception, so it wasn’t until the light of day when people got to see the damage firsthand.
“It sounded like a train coming,” a homeowner named Frank says.
The next sound he heard was trees crashing, stopping just short of his bedroom.
"It would have hit me,” Frank says. “It would have went inside my house. The Lord was with us.”
He’d pick up the limbs but they landed on top of a live power line.
“There's a power line right there,” Frank says. “Watch out! Don't step back there. See it. It's just laying there."
Power lines are down all over town. Crews are working to restore electricity as Border Patrol agents direct traffic around the debris.
This thing hit in spots, it looks like,” Dimmit County Commissioner Mike Uriegas says. “It wasn't like a swath. It jumped around town.”
He says the storm twisted and mangled a six-block stretch of downtown.
“Oh goodness,” Uriegas says. “Pray for us.”
A senior citizens’ home is running on backup generators. School buses are on standby to evacuate patients if the building gets too hot.
The storm also ripped the roof off an adult rehab facility.
“Hopefully we didn’t lose too much,” employee Jennifer Limon says.
She and her coworkers are cleaning up the soggy mess.
"Well the roof, when the roof came off, all the water came down and ruined the sheet rock, insulation and all,” Limon says.
She’s salvaging the electronics.
"There's water, sheet rock -- if you can see the water dripping out,” Limon says while holding up a keyboard.
The building’s roof is in the parking lot, leaning precariously on a power line.
Dimmit County’s emergency management director says 12 homes and ten businesses were affected by the storm.
