Cleanup efforts underway after tornado rips through Friendswood
FRIENDSWOOD (KTRK) -- When an EF2 tornado, with winds of up to 115 miles an hour cut a swatch through Friendswood Saturday morning, it damaged several homes, destroying one.
When he looked at his home security video Saturday afternoon, Troy Elmore saw he had an eyewitness digital account of the twister and it targeted his house.
In the video, patio furniture was tossed around the yard, with such force a chair bent his metal fence. "I looked at it," Elmore said, "and it was amazing."
Before objects began to move, leaves swirled around the house. Moments before it had toppled large trees in a neighbor's yard and damaged that house's roof.
Elmore noticed the trademark of a tornado: some objects damaged or destroyed, and others untouched. Among them was the outdoor TV, still mounted to the wall, without a scratch. The surveillance camera survived intact which allowed the security video to continue rolling.
On the front porch, the wind picked up as well. A pair of figures that had held Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters wobbled, and a few seconds later, were blown over. A metal pumpkin decoration of the wall crashed to the concrete. And then, a towering Italian cypress tree was snapped at its base and laid across the sidewalk.
All this, while there were more than a dozen guests asleep in the large home, including children for his daughter's birthday sleepover. The girls ran to hide in a bathroom, and then were led by Elmore's wife to a closet.
No one was injured, and other than a lot of missing trees, including an live oak, the house received only minor damage.
"If this was the end of a tornado, how bad would it have been on the side of town where it was so bad," he asked.
Take a look at this video, courtesy of ABC-13 viewer Troy Elmore. Surveillance camera video shows debris, chairs and other patio furniture flying around from the winds.
No injuries were reported.
