Damage to homes, flipped USPS mail truck in SW Houston caused by tornado, National Weather Service says

HOUSTON — It’s said that “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” keep postal workers from completing their rounds. You can include a tornado in the saying after a twister’s brief touchdown flipped a USPS vehicle Thursday along Plumbrook Drive.

Video also shows the driver moments later as neighbors came to his aid.

“He was climbing out of his mail truck and I asked him if he was alright and he said, ‘yes,'” neighbor Frank Gongora said.

Gongora lives a few doors down from the most severely damaged homes and said it all happened in an instant.

RELATED: NWS: EF-1 tornado touched down in southwest Houston area

“People say you hear a freight train,” Gongora said. “Well, I didn’t hear a freight train, all I heard was some strong winds, very strong winds.”

National Weather Service meteorologist Lance Wood was among those surveying damage on Friday afternoon.

“This looks like a tornado,” Wood said.

He said most of the weak circulations detected Thursday may not have touched down, unlike the one along Plumbrook Drive.

“This is that very localized, it makes you think it was a very brief touchdown that went back up,” Wood said.

Sadly, Khaymon Jones said his family’s home is the one the tornado seemed to touch down on.

“I was, like, there’s no way,” Jones said. “Like, everybody’s house is not that bad and we get here … what happened?”

Experts said that randomness is why watches and warnings are always worth your attention. The American Red Cross also had a team in the neighborhood assisting anyone who needed help.