Video shows tornado in Cooke County hitting gas station
Despite dozens of people being injured and others killed in the tornado on Saturday night, no one in the gas station was killed.
Paul Wedding, Tiffany Liou, Rebecca Lopez, WFAA Staff, Mariel Ruiz
4:32 PM CDT May 26, 2024
4:48 AM CDT May 27, 2024
VALLEY VIEW, Texas — New footage shared with WFAA shows Cooke County residents hiding in a Shell gas station as a reported tornado hit the area on Saturday night.
The video shows residents hiding inside as the tornado begins tearing apart the building.
Miraculously, no one inside the gas station was killed.
A young girl hiding inside the gas station said she and her friend had hidden inside the bathroom of the station and were trying to cover their friend’s daughter from the debris falling all around them inside. They were trapped in that station for more than an hour before firefighters could get everyone out due to debris blocking the hallways and doorways.
The general manager of that Shell gas station, Veronica Bowers, was hiding at her home with her 10-month old baby. Her home was also destroyed She is currently at a Fort Worth hospital with nine fractured ribs, a punctured lung and a blood clot in her chest.
A fundraiser has been started for Bowers here.
The Cooke County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that seven people have been killed and more than 60 injured from the Saturday night tornado. The seven killed include four children and three adults.
Most of those fatalities, Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington said, occurred at the nearby FRF Estates, where crews were continuing search-and-rescue efforts amidst “major damage.”
Sappington credited the help his department received from neighboring agencies for helping the injured get treated and sent home for the night.
“We’ve had an overwhelming response from departments out of county — from Grayson County and Denton County, and Sanger, and the different law enforcement agencies, fire department and EMS teams that showed up tonight to give us a hand and we really appreciate it.”
The National Weather Service will be out surveying the damage from that supercell to determine if it produced more than one tornado (every time a funnel touches the ground counts as a separate tornado), the path of the tornado, the path length, the path width, and the max wind speeds. The type of damage will give a better understanding of the wind speeds and it will then be assigned a rating.