Monday night’s line of storms struck the west side of Midlothian in Ellis County and left around ten structures damaged including Dale Holley’s home.
Holley said he gathered up his four dogs and hid in the safest part of the home on East Wyatt Road when a tornado was reported to be ten minutes away Monday night.
“When the power went out and I heard that noise, that's the scariest noise when you hear, your property being ripped apart because you don't know if you're going to go with it, you know? But, we didn't. We're here,” he said.
Holley was still there Tuesday but his roof was scattered across the road in a lot where heavy equipment was also tossed around like toys.
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“And if you look at all that insulation in the tree, I have a pink tree now,” Holley said.
Holley’s sister and brother-in-law’s home on the property beside his seemed like an island of safety.
“I think it skipped over us, for some reason. I don't know if we're living right or what. It did damage to the east of us, skipped over and hit him,” Holley’s brother-in-law Robert Gerard said.
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Up the road beyond Gerard’s home, debris from other structures scattered around a large tree that was uprooted.
But people who lived in several trailer homes beyond that had no damage.
Lisa Stubbs lives in one of those trailers.
“With lightning strikes, we could see it flying over. All of a sudden, I thought something landed on our house,” Stubbs said.
Some of the metal around her home appeared to have come from a metal shed that was beside a home about half a mile further away.
A damage assessment team toured the area with representatives from the city of Midlothian and Ellis County.
One member of the team said they found around ten structures damaged, mostly sheds and carports. It appeared that Holley’s was the hardest hit dwelling.
“It was scary but thank goodness we’re all ok, that’s the main thing,” Holley said.
The car he uses to commute each day for work in Fort Worth was damaged in his carport.
Holley did not get to work Tuesday while dealing with insurance issues.
Holley has insurance on the car but his brother-in-law said there was no coverage on the house because the property was still in the name of his deceased mother.
Gerard said they were considering ways to rebuild.
