This storm blew through Van, Texas as well. Snapping the huge Loves truck stop sign off I-20. A section about 80 feet in height came crashing down upon the canopy covering the automobile gas pumps. The winds and the Tornado tracked by channel 7 kltv.com hit van just before 2:10 am, snapping telephone poles, uprooting large trees, blocking a great many main and secondary roads. At least one downtown building had its roof taken off and set down in blocking much of main street. Many more buildings and houses received wind damage to roofs, outbuildings, windows, and external equipment.
The Tornado did not touch down within Van as far as I can tell. However it was lowering out of the sky as it crossed over the town. The warning sirens in town were never heard and from the time the Tornado was detected on radar until the storm hit Van was only about 10 minutes.
The extent of the damage may never be truly known. Many people in Van did not have power restored until the Monday following the storm. Many AT&T cell phones would only allow emergency calls for several days in the area as well.
By 3 am city employees were already responding to begin the clean up. By 4 am the traffic going to the city garage rivaled the busiest I have ever seen it on that street. The trucks, trailers, tractors and others vehicles hauling trees, limbs and brush from the clean up ran a continuous stream to the town’s old landfill where they burn such debris nowadays for 5 or 6 days before slowing.
As an example of how bad the and widespread the damage to trees and telephone poles was; My daughter left my house at about 5 am to go check on her home about 12 miles north of Van. She had to constantly go around downed trees, limbs and debris. 8 times she ran into roads completely blocked forcing here to turn around and try alternate routes. It took her right at 2 hours to reach her home to find that the houses and trees in that area had also suffered a good deal of damage from the winds.
I can only say thank goodness I signed up for Thundercall warnings from kltv.com. Thundercall is a warning system channel 7 uses to call your home phone, cell phones or both as in our case to let us know when a tornado or thunderstorm warning has been issued for our neighborhood. We received the calls at 1:59 am. I immediately turned on channel 7 and watched the radar reports from KLTV until the cable and the power went out as the storm hit. The last thing Mark Scirto showed on channel 7 before our power went was the doppler radar image showing the Tornado crossing I-20 just west of 314 and the loves truck stop. Thank you KLTV.com for the Thundercall service. Without it we would have had no warning of any kind before the storm hit and I would not have been able to send my wife and grandchildren to a safe place to ride out the storm.
I am so glad many of you have taken advantage of our StormTracker 7 ThunderCall service…It is free and will alert you to severe weather by phone. Please sign up if you wish at KLTV.COM then look for WIN STUFF. Sign us and be ahead of the next severe weather in your neighborhood. Thanks again for using ThunderCall.
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This storm blew through Van, Texas as well. Snapping the huge Loves truck stop sign off I-20. A section about 80 feet in height came crashing down upon the canopy covering the automobile gas pumps. The winds and the Tornado tracked by channel 7 kltv.com hit van just before 2:10 am, snapping telephone poles, uprooting large trees, blocking a great many main and secondary roads. At least one downtown building had its roof taken off and set down in blocking much of main street. Many more buildings and houses received wind damage to roofs, outbuildings, windows, and external equipment.
The Tornado did not touch down within Van as far as I can tell. However it was lowering out of the sky as it crossed over the town. The warning sirens in town were never heard and from the time the Tornado was detected on radar until the storm hit Van was only about 10 minutes.
The extent of the damage may never be truly known. Many people in Van did not have power restored until the Monday following the storm. Many AT&T cell phones would only allow emergency calls for several days in the area as well.
By 3 am city employees were already responding to begin the clean up. By 4 am the traffic going to the city garage rivaled the busiest I have ever seen it on that street. The trucks, trailers, tractors and others vehicles hauling trees, limbs and brush from the clean up ran a continuous stream to the town’s old landfill where they burn such debris nowadays for 5 or 6 days before slowing.
As an example of how bad the and widespread the damage to trees and telephone poles was; My daughter left my house at about 5 am to go check on her home about 12 miles north of Van. She had to constantly go around downed trees, limbs and debris. 8 times she ran into roads completely blocked forcing here to turn around and try alternate routes. It took her right at 2 hours to reach her home to find that the houses and trees in that area had also suffered a good deal of damage from the winds.
I can only say thank goodness I signed up for Thundercall warnings from kltv.com. Thundercall is a warning system channel 7 uses to call your home phone, cell phones or both as in our case to let us know when a tornado or thunderstorm warning has been issued for our neighborhood. We received the calls at 1:59 am. I immediately turned on channel 7 and watched the radar reports from KLTV until the cable and the power went out as the storm hit. The last thing Mark Scirto showed on channel 7 before our power went was the doppler radar image showing the Tornado crossing I-20 just west of 314 and the loves truck stop. Thank you KLTV.com for the Thundercall service. Without it we would have had no warning of any kind before the storm hit and I would not have been able to send my wife and grandchildren to a safe place to ride out the storm.
I am so glad many of you have taken advantage of our StormTracker 7 ThunderCall service…It is free and will alert you to severe weather by phone. Please sign up if you wish at KLTV.COM then look for WIN STUFF. Sign us and be ahead of the next severe weather in your neighborhood. Thanks again for using ThunderCall.