In a north Texas county, dazed residents sift through homes mangled by a tornado
VALLEY VIEW, Texas — Dazed residents of a north Texas county searched their mangled homes Sunday after seven people were killed there when a tornado ripped through the remote area near the small community of Valley View.
Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington said “only a trail of rubble remains” in the area bordering Oklahoma, which includes two children, ages 2 and 5, in Valley View, a town of barely 800 people. . The bodies of three family members were found in one home, the sheriff said.
The county was hit hard by powerful weekend storms that killed 15 people in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Tens of thousands of residents were without power in the three states.
Kevin Dorantes, 20, was in nearby Carrollton when he heard the tornado hit the Valley View neighborhood, where he lived with his father and brother. He called and told them to take cover in the windowless bathroom, where the couple survived the storm without injury.
Some of Dorantes’ neighbors weren’t so lucky.
As he wandered the neighborhood, inspecting the downed power lines and destroyed property, he came across a family whose home had been reduced to a pile of splintered rubble. A father and son were trapped under the rubble, and friends and neighbors worked frantically to get them out, Dorantes said.
“They were conscious but seriously injured,” Dorantes said. “The father’s leg was broken.”
He said they managed to place the father on a mattress and carry him to a truck, where he and his son were driven to an ambulance at a nearby supermarket.
Valley View Police Chief Justin Stamms said the small farming community was reeling.
“It was exhausting and heartbreaking,” Stamms said. “I’ve seen this kind of damage on TV, but never in real life before. It’s terrible.”
He said most of the town’s residents work in agriculture, or at a local feed store and a postal service. Many of the displaced residents are staying in makeshift shelters in area churches, he said.
Cynthia De La Cruz said her family hoped to put some of their belongings in storage while they figure out where to live.
“We’re trying to grab whatever we can salvage,” she said. De La Cruz described the city, about 55 miles (88 kilometers) north of Fort Worth, as a tight-knit area with mostly Latino people.
“I know this community really sticks together when bad things happen,” she said.
Men were already busy on Sunday afternoon installing a new roof on a heavily damaged house. Teams of neighbors and volunteers from a local church helped residents carry furniture and other belongings from battered homes to pickups and trailers.
Christopher Landeros, 19, was having dinner in nearby Lewisville when his mother, Juana Landeros, called him and said, “Come see us in the truck.”
Juana, her husband and their 9-year-old son Larry took shelter in their pickup truck under floor mats in their garage. The garage has now disappeared. A tree fell through the windows.
“It was horrible. Hellish. I kept thinking we were going to die,” Juana said.
Christopher ran to a neighbor’s house two blocks away to help get an injured man out. The man’s wife and two children were killed.
The street leading to their Valley View neighborhood was lined with twisted sheets of metal, pieces of siding, pieces of plywood, fallen utility poles and trees stripped of branches and bark.
Two young boys parked their bikes next to an overturned camper and ran through the wreckage.