Vancouver man has close call with Texas tornado
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LANCASTER, Texas – On Saturday, Gene Tomlinson hooked up a trailer full of chicken broth to his truck and hit the road south from Sherwood, Ore. headed for Lancaster, Texas.
On Tuesday, he found himself nearly in the direct path of a tornado that destroyed dozens of buildings in Lancaster and other parts of the Dallas metropolitan area.
Tomlinson, who is from Vancouver, Wash., said he was a few hundred yards away from the tornado’s path when it ripped through a truck yard adjacent to his truck stop.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen one of these things,” he said.
Helicopter footage from a local TV affiliate showed trailers knocked on their side and strewn around the yard.
Tomlinson said other drivers at the truck stop recounted seeing some trailers tossed 200 feet in the air by the strong wind.
“I got debris, just leafs and parts of shingles, all over the front of my truck,” he told KATU.com.
Tomlinson was sitting in the cab of his truck when the tornado hit.
“They came out and said ‘we need you to all go inside the building,’” he said. That’s when he heard the warning sirens go off along with the thunder and lightning.
Despite being so close to the destructive tornado, Tomlinson said he never felt in danger.
At one point, he started recording video that he later posted on his Facebook page.
Tomlinson was with his wife at the time. She accompanies him on most of his cross-country trips.
In addition to the damage at the truck yard, the tornadoes also badly damaged many houses and picked up parked cars.
The National Weather Service confirmed at least two separate "large and extremely dangerous" tornadoes. Several other developing twisters were reported as a band of violent storms crept through the Dallas area.
