Canton residents, business owners recount Wednesday tornado

May 30--Louanna Campbelll

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Linda Myers huddled in the hallway of her nephew's house with her sister-in-law, grandniece, grandnephew and three dogs on Wednesday when the tornado siren sounded in Canton.

Myers said she held on to the children and prayed they would all make it.

"The suction was really strong," she said. "I thought the suction was going to pull my sister-in-law out through the bathroom. She held on to the door and clung to me. I held on to the kids and the dogs."

Myers' nephew's house on Church Street was at the edge of an area about three blocks long near Texas Highway 64 West and Texas Highway 19 in Canton that was damaged by one confirmed tornado and at least three other reported tornadoes in the area.

Myers said she could hear banging noises and lots of glass breaking.

"I could hear it all around us," she said. "I just prayed, 'Lord, take care of us.'"

Myers said she left the kids in the hallway when she heard the noise stop and saw the curtains and the window had been sucked outside.

When Myers went outside she saw the two large pecan trees on the sides of the house had been uprooted, and one of them was lying on top of her black 2008 Ford Focus.

"It was a gem," Myers said on Thursday as she and her sister worked with a grabber device to get belongings out of the car. "I only have liability insurance. I have a bicycle and a golf cart. It's only a car. God will provide for us."

Two blocks west of where Myers continued to count her blessings, Heather Gandy, her boyfriend and her cousin were in the parking lot sweeping shattered glass from the back door of her salon and boutique.

"This building used to be a bank," Gandy said. "One of my employees who went through the last tornado (May 2017) came in with her kids and husband. We all got into the room where the safe used to be and waited it out."

Gandy said she comforted her employee's 12-year-old daughter who had also survived the 2017 tornadoes that ripped apart the town and rural areas in Van Zandt County.

Next door to Gandy's Rustic Rose Salon and Boutique, workers lifted debris and twisted metal from the UT Health East Texas Rehabilitation and Olympic Center building.

UT Health spokeswoman Allison Pollan said the building and most of the equipment inside received extensive damage.

"We had team members on-site immediately," she said. "They were able to secure all of the computers and medical records."

Pollan said the undamaged equipment, records and computers were taken to another location.

Down the street from the Olympic Center, a Valero gas station was being boarded up with plywood. Workers straightened twisted metal on the canopy over the gas pumps and hammered plywood to the side of the building where the siding once was.

A Salvation Army canteen truck was set up in the gas station parking lot.

Stephen Thomas of the Denton County Emergency Disaster Services Team said he was deployed from Lewisville about 6 p.m. Wednesday.

"We got here at 7:30 p.m. last night," Thomas said. "We served coffee, cocoa, water and snacks to first responders and utility workers."

Thomas said another truck carrying 100 lunches and 100 dinners was coming in to serve city workers, first responders and utility crews.

Next to the Valero station, twisted metal and pieces of the Valero sign littered Sumner Parking Lot.

Reagan Sumner, owner of the parking lot and pavilion used during First Monday Trade Days, was on a skid-steer loader lifting debris and broken power poles from his property.

Pieces of the turquoise Valero sign were seen more than 100 yards away at the edge of Sumner's lot in the line of snapped and uprooted trees.

"I'm tornadoed out," Sumner said from the seat of his skid steer. "I still haven't rebuilt my rustic barn wedding venue that was hit by the last tornado."

Sumner's wedding venue in rural Van Zandt County was destroyed during the May 2017 storms.

"My wife and I haven't rebuilt it yet," Sumner said. "We had kids from Edgewood who were decorating for their prom huddled together in the bathroom when that tornado came through."

Sumner said his parking lot and pavilion will be open for business this weekend.

"All of the electrical poles were snapped and taken down," Sumner said. "We'll do car parking only."

TWITTER: @LouAnnCampbell

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