Some residents in the Saegert Ranch neighborhood in Killeen are still picking up the debris left by high winds in their cul-de-sac Saturday night. People initially thought it might have been a tornado, but our First Alert 25 meteorologists confirmed it was just heavy winds
"I heard the winds picking up and everything and the rainstorm and all of a sudden our house started shaking really really violently," resident Heather Corder said. "And I got up and I looked out my front window and all of a sudden I saw the tail end of a funnel and it was with shingles flying everywhere and I heard glass breaking and the funnel took off and headed over to our neighbors."
Corder said it all started at 11 p.m. and lasted less than ten minutes. She said she is lucky the winds didn't do more damage to her home or hurt her family.
Her children were asleep when she and her husband saw a funnel cloud come around the side of their house. Much of her concern was for her neighbors across the street.
Shawn Morton said he was watching a basketball game when the storm got worse.
"All of a sudden we heard a loud noise, a lot of whistling noise," neighbor Shawn Morton said. "I ran out of the bedroom to check on the kids. 2 seconds after I left the bedroom, I heard a loud pssssh sound. And all of a sudden there was glass all over the bedroom, the windows all blew out and the roof came off."
Morton said he grabbed his children and took shelter downstairs until it passed in only a matter of minutes. His home, along with several of his neighbors, experienced heavy water damage, broken windows, torn off roofs and scattered debris from nearby yards.
His wife was at work when the storm was at its worst, but she said she is just glad her husband and children were alright.
Both the Morton and Cordes families said the first thing they did after the storm passed was make sure their neighbors were okay, and luckily they were.
Morton's house was hit the hardest by the heavy winds. He said his family is going to stay at a hotel for the next few days until the forecast is clear. All of the affected families said they they are in the process of working with their insurance to access the damage.
"It happened so suddenly but I'm just glad my family was safe," Morton said. "The house could have been gone but as long as my family was safe, I would be happy."
