Residents cleaning up after tornadoes leave trail of damage across Central Texas

ELGIN, Texas — Residents in Central Texas are picking up the pieces after tornadoes touched down across the Austin area on March 21.

Many residents woke up Tuesday morning to see the damage for the first time in the daylight.

Videos shared with KVUE show a tornado touching down in Elgin, a town about 40 minutes northeast of Austin.

A property owner in Elgin said when he looked around Tuesday morning, he was “devastated.” He says during the peak of the storm Monday night, he and his wife hid in a closet as what sounded like a “freight train” blew through. They escaped without a scratch.

The mayor of Elgin, Ron Ramirez, told KVUE a mobile home flipped multiple times in the twister before smacking into a building where people were living. Out of about a dozen people living there, only one was injured and taken to a hospital in Austin, the mayor said.

Other images from Elgin show electric poles toppled over and debris scattered around properties in the rural town.

Conner Board, who was reporting in Round Rock, found large trees strewn about a neighborhood about five minutes east of Dell Diamond off of Red Bud Lane. A U-Haul truck was seen flipped on its side in the aftermath of the storm.

One neighbor who spoke to Board said she had just finished her evening prayer when she heard a tornado and her windows started shattering. 

Another man said he was struggling to shut his door due to the high winds, but was able to shut it and then made his way into his bathroom for safety.

One neighbor said that while he and his kids hid in a bathroom, the whole house started shaking and food was knocked off the shelves in the pantry.

Thousands of people in the Williamson County area are without power Tuesday morning.

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