CYPRESS, Texas – If there’s one word to describe what happened in the Bridgeland neighborhood on Thursday, it would be destruction.
Several homes in the recently constructed neighborhood in Cypress are questionable to even be repairable.
On Thursday, an EF-1 tornado eyed up the community, packing a punch that is forcing families to find another place to live for the foreseeable future.
The winds from the tornado—which peaked well over 100 miles per hour—were strong enough to pick apart houses, throw wooded planks like projectiles, and pierce whatever was in their path.
After the winds calmed, families walked outside to find their homes were destroyed and their roofs missing.
“We were all in here,” said David White, while showing KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding where he waited out the storm. “Four dogs. Me, my wife and my 16-year-old. We’re sitting on cushions and blankets in here, and it was vibrating, and I was holding on to them. And I was thinking, ‘If this is it, at least we’re going together.’ It was very scary.”
The White family is one of several that can no longer live in their home.
Actually, David and his crew managed to escape their safe place just in the nick of time.
David: “The drywall got wet and collapsed.”
Gage: “You look at this. You look at the room that you sheltered in, and yet your family’s still here. How lucky do you feel?”
David: “We count our blessings, because that’s the most important thing.”
He’s not alone. Two doors down, 16-year-old Alejandro Marrero is also thankful for his guardian angel.
“You know God’s here,” he said.
He rode out the tornado in a closet with his mother and grandmother. All walked away without a scratch.
Alejandro: “I walked outside of the bathroom and then ran into the closet.”
Gage: “Do you feel lucky to be alive?”
Alejandro: “Yeah. But I’m also lucky that my mom and grandma and everyone else here is alive.”
While some of the families here are left to pick through the pieces, others are already back to normal daily life with their electric back.
How did their power get turned on so quickly?
This is likely because the community is newer and has its utility lines buried underground.