EF2 tornado, storms cripple Cass County area

A succession of dangerous storms hit the Cass County area starting on Wednesday, June 14 leaving many still without power.

On the heels of those storms many in the area now brace for nearly 100-degree temperatures.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Shreveport confirmed that the northern portion of Queen City received damage from an EF2 tornado. No fatalities have been reported.

According to the NWS, “in a very unstable and unusually strongly sheared June environment, a large and long-lived supercell thunderstorm developed near a frontal boundary. The storm produced large hail, damaging winds, and a tornado.”

“The tornado initially produced damage along the shore of Wright Patman Lake. It snapped and uprooted hundreds of hardwood and softwood trees along its path, first crossing CR 3555. After it crossed CR 3555, it peeled part of a roof off of a single-family home. The tornado continued to snap and uproot trees as it paralleled CR 3555 and crossed CR 3551 and CR 3554. The tornado strengthened to EF-2 intensity as it crossed CR 3659 and produced more widespread snapping of trees.

“As the tornado continued on, its most intense damage was at a two-story industrial facility along US 59. The tornado tore off the roof and damaged the walls of the facility, bending and breaking parts of the metal frame of its roof structure.

“After crossing US 59 and tossing vehicles, the tornado snapped more trees on the other side of the road. The tornado weakened some with more uprooting and sporadic tree snaps as it crossed FM 2327, CR 3781, CR 3778, FM 3129, and CR 3886. It finally lifted as it crossed CR 3889 as damage transitioned to all straight-line wind damage with winds estimated at 80 to 90 mph as the storm continued to the border of Cass County, Texas and Miller County, Arkansas.”

As the result of the first storm on Wednesday, there were reports of significant damage, but non-life-threatening injuries with a tree falling on a camper trailer at Atlanta State Park, trapping a man, and sending him to the hospital. Also, in Bloomburg an 18-wheeler was blown off the road, also causing non-life-threatening injuries.

After the storms additional damage around the area continued to be reported and many in the area still are without power when this article was written. Both Bowie Cass Electric Cooperative and SWEPCO have reported significant outages throughout the area.

Shortly after the first storm on the 16th, SWEPCO sent out a press release indicating that they had “activated an all-in response.

“Already, we have requested mutual aid assistance with a call for an additional 185-line worker crews and forestry resources with an estimated 2,000 additional utility professionals to join in the recovery work.” That number has increased to 3000, as of Monday.

According to the media department Amanda Keeney, director of communications for SWEPCO as of Monday, there were still approximately 80k outages that were reported in their whole network. However, the number was cut in half as of 3:30 central time. At the peak of the storm, SWEPCO reported that there were 463 outages in Cass County, as of Monday afternoon that number was down to 166. Bowie Cass sent out a release Monday morning saying that they were “starting off our morning with 5,172 meters without power. That’s compared to the well over 8,000 meters out that we started yesterday off with.” As of Monday, current outage counts for Cass County were at 2,140 for their network.

After the tornado, two additional severe thunderstorms hit Cass County, causing additional outages over the weekend.

On June 16, Judge Travis Ransom issued a disaster declaration and a letter to the Governor. Later in the day, Governor Abbot issued a Proclamation that included Cass County.

On a positive note, Atlanta State Park was set to reopen Monday, June 19th.

“Buildings were mostly spared. The greatest damage was to carports and storage buildings. Tree and fence damage is extensive. I would not want to estimate the damage myself. We have not had anyone assess the damages yet. It is going to be in the thousands I’m sure,” said the Mayor of Bloomburg, Delores Simmons. “A few vehicles were damaged and totaled. The impact with our residents is heartbreaking. Most of our citizens are older, low-income and uninsured or do not have the means for cleanup. Volunteers have been our greatest help and are so appreciated. The Fire Department stepped up along with the Highway Department and Forestry Service to open roads up, as we were totally blocked on all access roads around Bloomburg. There were no medical emergencies during this time thankfully. The cleanup is going to take time and one business (Lady Bug Plant Farm) is closed for an undetermined time. Other businesses were closed until power was restored. A few electrical services are still down at this time. We are not really expecting and funding due to the damages did not include a substantial number of home destruction in our city.”

The county has set up a cleanup burn pile for wood debris at 2851 FM 74, Atlanta, Texas.