Rio Vista man grabbed his dogs, held on for life during tornado
Watts was in a mobile home in the Futrell Court neighborhood of
"I did a lot of talking to the man upstairs while I was under that bed," said Watts, who had strapped himself to the base of the bed with a belt. "This mobile home was rocking and shaking. I thought it was going to go at any moment."
The storm tossed debris all over his neighborhood during Sunday's supercell outbreak that began about
The
Here's a map showing the tornadoes.
"There is video evidence of tornadoes and quite a bit of damage," Dunn said.
Early reports indicate the storms produced an EF-0 tornado, which has wind speeds up to 85 mph.
No injuries were reported in the storm.
'Big and spinning'
Watts' wife, Sandra, rode the storm out from a neighbor's house and got a glimpse of the twister.
"I saw it from the flashes of lightning coming right toward us --it was big and it was spinning,"
Damage was evident throughout Futrell Court neighborhood.
The Watts' detached garage had the roof ripped apart and the doors were blown out. Trees were blown over or stripped of their foliage. Behind Watts' home an outbuilding had been destroyed.
Near the Watts' home,
"But we were pretty lucky," Conklin said. "Our place came through it OK."
Behind his mobile home his aunt's travel-trailer had been reduced to a pile of rubble.
"They had been living there but left before the storm, thank goodness," Conklin said.
While Watts' mobile home survived the devastating winds, high waters from the 6 to 8 inches of rain that accompanied the tornado were causing other problems. The mobile home was sinking Monday morning as waist-deep floodwaters stood on his property.
"I paid off my land and now look at this,"
Assessing the damage
"We're still trying to get out and get a look at the damage," said
"There was one point in time the roof was shaking and it was 'here we go,'" Schmitt said. "My butt cheeks were getting tight."
Schmitt's house on the south side of
East of town, highway crews were working Monday afternoon to quickly repair
FM 916 was submerged as water from a creek overflowed, between
"The water has receded, and crews are currently repairing the road surface," said
Schools canceled
The
By
"They're all OK," Ribinskas said. "Their homes may have some tree damage or roof damage but they're all OK."
When he saw the storms rolling in from his home in
"As far as I can tell, we've been lucky," he said. "There have been some homes that have water in them or have some type of damage but it sounds like everybody came through it unharmed."
In
The
"We have broken windows. We have broken sky lights. I'm expecting the worst because baseball-size hail doesn't do anybody any good," said
Wooley, who also serves as facilities director for at least a half-dozen county-owned buildings in
While no injuries were reported in
"Mother Nature wasn't too kind to us," he said. "We had a cluster line of storms, three in a row, with ample rotations and ping pong to baseball size hail."
Many area residents felt lucky that they escaped much of the damage.
"I got some hail damage to my car. It's bumps and dings," said
Church fire in
The storms did pass through
Lightning may have ignited a fire early Monday at
The blaze was reported about
No injuries were reported in the fire that took firefighters just a few minutes to extinguish, but they remained on the scene for hours to knock down any hot spots.
Along with
Preliminary damage estimate was
Staff writers
Twitter: @fwhanna
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Here's a look at some of the worst tornadoes that have hit
Sources:
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