Reliving a Texas tornado: ‘Get the dog and get in the safe room’

From the second-story living room of Glen Zell’s home, the path of a tornado that sheared off his roof is abundantly clear.

Looking to the south, a home and mobile home are heavily damaged. On his own property, his mother-in-law’s house has been demolished and an outbuilding is already being rebuilt.

To the east and north, more homes and trees show the destruction that came from the EF-1 tornado that hit on March 7. The twister was about 300 yards wide and stayed on the ground for about two miles with sustained winds of 95-100 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

Nine homes were destroyed and three were heavily damaged and almost all of it is visible from Zell’s home because the roof is gone, providing a 360-degree panorama of the destruction. The tornado touched down on the south side of U.S. 180 before skipping across the highway and nailing his home.

The tornado in Cool, between Weatherford and Mineral Wells, was the first of three — others would strike Stephenville and Tolar — that touched down in a 13-hour period to the west and southwest of Fort Worth. North Texas saw nine tornadoes in March, well above the average of three.

For Zell and his wife, Vickie, who moved into their home in November 2014, an indoor safe room would provide shelter from the storm. As someone who grew up in the Panhandle, Zell has a healthy respect for tornadoes, so he spent an extra $5,000 to put an upright shelter inside his home.

Zell said he had no inkling what was coming his way on March 7.

“No warning whatsoever,” Zell said. “None. Zero.”

‘She probably saved my life’

The wind was blowing hard and he looked outside to check on his mother-in-law’s house that sat about 75 yards away. No one was home since his mother in-law had moved into an assisted living facility in August.

“I couldn’t see it,” Zell said. “The wind was going horizontal. … You could tell the sound of the wind just sounded odd. It didn’t sound like a train.”

It was enough to send Zell and his wife Vickie, a schoolteacher, running for cover. Zell credits his wife’s years of school-mandated disaster drills for getting them to the safe room.

“I yelled at her: ‘Get the dog and get in the safe room,’ ” Zell said. “She did not hesitate. She made a dash for it. She probably saved my life. If not for her, I probably would have hesitated.”

As they ran for the safe room, they could hear objects slamming into the house. They would later learn it was debris from across the road and the roof from his mother-in-law’s house.

“You could almost feel like all of the air sucked out of the house,” Zell said. “I mean it was the most unusual feeling I’ve ever had. When she reached for the master bedroom door, it wouldn’t open.”

Zell surmises that the tornado had created a “vacuum” inside his home that moved one of the exterior walls about a foot. When debris broke a bedroom window, Zell said “it released the vacuum” and they were finally able to open the bedroom door. They sprinted for the closet, where Vickie had to knock debris out of the way to open the closet door, finally reaching the safe room.

They would emerge a couple of minutes later to find most of the roof missing and debris everywhere.

“I could see the sky so I turned to her and just said the roof was gone so we need to get out of here,” Zell said.

They’ll rebuild their home

The last month has been a blur. His mother-in-law’s house has already been demolished — the chair she used to sit in was blown 30 feet and found atop a pile of debris. Zell is also rebuilding an outbuilding that was destroyed.

Behind the home, he would lose 31 trees — a neighbor lost more than 100 — as well as some memorabilia that included autographs from Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth from his days as an AT&T marketing official.

Even a month later, shards of glass are still embedded in the walls of some rooms, and debris still crunches underfoot throughout the home. It is those large chunks of glass that have Zell convinced they could have been seriously injured.

The Zells plan to spend the next year rebuilding their dream home. They will change little, but Zell said he will add hurricane ties, which might have saved his roof. He will also return the safe room, currently in storage, to his closet.

“If it had been in ground or even in the garage, we wouldn’t have been able to get to it,” Zell said. “It may have saved our lives or definitely prevented us from getting hurt.”

‘It’s going to be really tight’

The next morning, on March 8, two more tornadoes would touch down in Stephenville and near Tolar, in Hood County. The Stephenville twister, an EF-1, damaged an apartment complex as well as the Tarleton State University football stadium’s press box and scoreboard. in at the football stadium. The twister stayed on the ground for about a mile.

A few minutes later, another tornado would descend on Jack’s Trailer Park near Tolar, forcing many of the residents to find new homes.

The damaged trailers are long gone, with one side of the small trailer park covered in piles of scrap that are being salvaged.

Jack Fisk, the trailer park’s owner, would see nine of his 20 trailers destroyed by the EF-1 tornado that packed winds of 85-90 mph and stayed on the ground for about two minutes. The storm also left its mark, with many roofs and fences damaged across Hood County.

But the hardest hit area was at Fisk’s trailer park.

“All of them that were lost were mine,” Fisk said. “It just nearly shuts me down.”

Besides cleaning up his property, Fisk has been driving to Stephenville to a Federal Emergency Management Agency’s recovery center to try and get help. Hood, Parker and Erath counties are part of a federal disaster declaration area.

Fisk hopes to obtain a Small Business Administration loan that will help him start making repairs to the trailer park.

“If that comes through, I’ll be back in business,” he said. “Since I just got this paid off, I guess I’ll have another 15 years to pay this off but I’ll be back in business again.”

But Fisk acknowledges that he’ll be in a difficult situation if he doesn’t get the loan.

“It’s going to be really tight,” Fisk said. “There’s just about enough left to pay costs. It’s really hard to grow without any other income.”

‘Why would they come back here?’

Two of the residents of the trailer park, Johnny and Glenda Walker had to be rescued from their mobile home that was turned into a pile of debris. They were both hospitalized and are now recovering from their injuries and living with friends and relatives.

A gofundme page has been set up for the couple that has $1,340 in pledges for the Walkers.

“Now they’re out looking for a place to live,” Fisk said. “They’re not finding anything they can afford.”

They have no plans to return to the trailer park, Fisk said.

“I think they’re concerned about lightning striking twice,” Fisk said. “Why would they come back here?”

Another resident of the trailer park, Jimmy Hill, also injured a tendon in his arm as he helped rescue the couple.

“It’s just getting worse and worse,” Fisk said. “Every time he takes that band off, it just swells up.”

Hill works as a handyman but his injuries have made it difficult for him to find jobs, Fisk said.

Before the storm, Fisk was hoping he could slow down. Now he will be spending his time trying to bring back his trailer park.

“I had reached the point where I could buy an easy chair,” Fisk said. “I thought I could rest in it. Not anymore.”

This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 11:47 AM with the headline "Reliving a Texas tornado: ‘Get the dog and get in the safe room’."