There were no deaths or injuries, but plenty of property damage.
The storm hit between 6 and 6:15 a.m. according to most accounts, roaring through like a freight train and knocking out power. An Oncor lineman repairing lines on Royal Street at 10 a.m. said four main feeders to Salado were all damaged and crews were removing limbs and trees from power lines to restore electricity.
Power was back on in at least two feeders by 1 p.m.
Royal Street, just off the main drag, looked like a war zone with oak trees tumbled into the road, blocking off traffic as efficiently as the Secret Service had just days before for Jenna Bush’s pre-wedding festivities.
Holly Maata, manager for the Old Salado Springs Celebration Room, said a large oak limb had fallen across the roof of the center and many smaller limbs were down around the property - but damage was mercifully slight.
At the Baines House Bed and Breakfast Inn down the block, damage was severe. Windows were blown out of the original structure that was built by the Rev. George Washington Baines, President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s grandfather. Drapes were hanging out the openings.
Owners Rod and Sheryl Russell walked the property in a daze viewing the wreckage. Ms. Russell said the old glass dated back to 1860 when the house was built. The scene reminded her of Dorothy landing in Oz, she said. “Or maybe the Amityville Horror.”
A dove cage was overturned, and a second dove cote was empty where birds had flown the coop.
“I don’t think they will come back,” Ms Russell said. “They may think this is a dangerous place to live.”
A vintage windmill was demolished and numerous large limbs had fallen on guest houses on the grounds where just days before Karl Rove, the president’s advisor, and Craig Roberts Stapleton, the U.S. ambassador to France, had stayed.
Mrs. Russell stopped to peer into the cage of her green and red pet conure, Jack the Nipper.
“When the storm hit I could hear him screaming like a banshee in the dark,” Ms. Russell said. “He’s been jabbering up a storm since.”
Crews from Embarq and Oncor worked up and down Main Street trimming downed trees and limbs from power lines.
Fire Chief Charles Young of the Salado Volunteer Fire Department said the county notified him at 6 a.m. of impending weather.
“I could hear it roaring like a train in the clouds,” Young said. “I don’t think a funnel touched down to the ground. But I think it created many powerful whirlwinds that did the damage.”
Young said all the main roads were impassible after the storm hit. His crews used chain saws to clear them.
Lt. Bruno Matarazzo with the Salado Police Department said there was a lot of damage to roofs, carports and trees. He said the Mill Creek area was hardest hit and West Village was still completely blocked at noon.
“If it weren’t for our volunteer fire department, we would have been in a world of hurt,” Matarazzo said.
At Salado’s middle school on Thomas Arnold Road, the storm had peeled the brick veneer off one side of a building.
In Little River-Academy the devastation saw mature trees blown down everywhere. Roofs were taken off barns, light poles bent, street signs ripped up and entire cornfields bent to the ground.
Gordon Thomas said his family rode out the storm in a bathtub in his house.
“You couldn’t even see the front of the house (after the storm) because of the (downed) tree limbs,” Thomas said.
At the drag strip two service buildings were destroyed and a roof from a hay barn was in the parking lot of the SPJST Hall.
W.C. Evans, who lives outside Little River-Academy on Wilson Valley Loop, said the storm caused the worst damage he has seen on his property in 68 years.
Evans lost two grain elevators, one of which landed 250 yards away from its foundations. Shingles were peeled from Evans’ roof and a power pole was ripped out of the ground and thrown into the side of his house.
A 120-foot two-way radio antenna was ripped from its moorings and wrapped around a nearby barn.
“It’s pretty devastating,” Evans said. “It had to have been a twister to rip those trees up like that. It took every bit of the tin off that house down yonder,” he said, pointing to an old house that had been serving as a place to store hay.
“There’s gonna be a lot of cleaning up,” Evans said. “We won’t get it done today.”
Paul Romer contributed to this report.
promer@temple-telegram.com
