Original subtitles

I'm a reporter in Texas.

A big part of my job is covering sports, specifically football.

I got an assignment covering the Tigers in Jacksboro.

That day, March 21st, there were just storms all over the state of Texas.

We are under a level 3 risk for severe weather today.

We may have warnings today.

Those are the warnings for tornadoes.

By noon, these begin to expand.

They're not severe at noon, but into the early afternoon hours,

a couple of these could end up exhibiting rotational characteristics.

My name is Starla Sanders, and I'm the Jacksboro High School principal.

I take a lot of pride in that role,

and I know the importance of it.

This particular Monday, March 21st,

was our first day back from spring break.

We were excited.

I was so excited to go to school that day to see all the kids

and we were going through our normal routine.

It wasn't until about three o'clock

on Monday, that things kind of changed.

This is a tornado on the ground.

So this is a serious situation.

Jacksboro, get to your safe spot right now!

It starts moving northeast.

It was an EF3,

and to put that into perspective,

that's winds of 140 miles per hour plus

and for a small town like Jacksboro,

that could mean utter destruction.

I received a text message saying

that the tornado is on our path,

and then at that point my gut starts to hurt.

Right across the road from us at the high school

is the elementary school.

I have two boys and they attend Jacksboro Elementary.

I'm Michael Qualls, former elementary principal at Jacksboro Elementary.

We had about a 40-minute warning for when the storm hit.

We begin loading all of our students into the cars in the car lot.

I'm outside loading kids in the car

and all of a sudden, the atmosphere changed.

You could hear like a... like a rolling thunder.

I remember looking at one of my staff members,

and I said, I think we need to stop loading cars

and we need to start getting everybody here into the safe hallways.

After we've loaded as many people as we can out in cars,

I ran into the building, down to the end of the hallway.

All of a sudden, the air goes

and completely pulls back to me,

like, it sucks the breath out of me.

I feel this big, huge explosion.

It pushes me down the hallway.

There's no way that everybody is going to be okay.

We went outside

and I saw the elementary roof coming off the top.

That's when I began to panic.

Because I had two babies at the elementary.

I had to move debris to get back to where the kids were

in the safe hallway that was close to the gym.

And I asked, "Is everyone fine?"

And they said, "Yes."

There was probably about 400 people in the elementary school

that survived this storm.

My news director calls me and says, "Hey,

there's been a massive tornado in Jacksboro.

We need you there as soon as possible to do live shots."

It was just a moment that I will never forget

and just really eerie in a sense of just

watching all those people take a really hard look

at what was left of their community.

It's just a miracle and, uh...

I was one of the first responders here

and, uh, this campus did a great job.

It's amazing that no one was injured that day.

The most important thing is is that we were all okay.

Every kid, not just my family,

all the kids at the elementary,

all the kids at the high school.

I mean, we're talking minutes of them getting out of the gym,

getting into the hallway, getting secure before that tornado hit.

God really did put his hand on us

and watched over us that day for sure.

The tornado in Jacksboro, we didn't even realize was just the beginning.

Two hours after the Jacksboro tornado,

190 miles south, an EF2 tornado is forming.

My name is Deja.

I'm a waitress at Twin Peaks Restaurant in Round Rock, Texas.

There had been warnings pretty much all day.

Never actually think that it's going to hit you or happen to you.

Khadejah is one of my best friends.

Um, we met at Twin Peaks.

We all get like a... a ring on our phone.

Tornado warning.

My mom, she's currently watching the news,

and so she's seeing live footage

of it hitting this place, this place, this place.

So she calls me and she's like,

"Deja, you better go to the bathroom right now."

Oh, Whittlesey North, Whittlesey North, Whittlesey North.

Okay. We've got a confirmed tornado.

Let me see.

Round Rock. - Switch it.

Round Rock. Move out of the way.

Look to the right. Right. Tornado on the ground right now.

Moving over I-35. And 45.

35 meets 45 toll.

This is live from Round Rock.

On our Whittlesey camera.

We have a confirmed tornado on the ground.

Take down the banner, please.

Moving across I-35.

We go to the front patio and we see the tornado forming across the way.

Blink of an eye, the tornado was right, coming right at us.

All I hear is screaming.

We're all standing at the windows watching this tornado

get closer and closer to the restaurant.

Everything happened so fast.

I opened my eyes and I just see things like, flying around.

And like... like people being dragged up and down,

I thought I was gonna die for real.

Tornado on the ground right now.

Moving over I-35.

Oh, my God!

It was so fast.

I hear glass everywhere.

The glass hit me in the back.

Once I got up,

I could just hear this lady screaming, like, screaming.

So after it hit us, it went directly to the Walmart.

It still looks like a tornado on the ground to me

at I-35 and 45 flyovers in Round Rock.

Can we pan a little right?

I know we've got a pole there,

but I don't wanna miss anything

as this thing moves a little bit north

eastward from that location.

There's flying debris on the 45 flyover in Round Rock.

This is why we need to take these tornado warnings seriously.

As soon as we go to the parking lot,

we see Walmart is all messed up on the other side

and all of our cars are totaled.

Adrenaline was rushing and it's a mess.

...[bleep] right here.

The tornado starts heading towards a residential area.

You have an entire community of people

just trying to figure out what's going on

and how they're going to take cover?

My name is Michael Talamantez

and I live in Round Rock, Texas.

It was a weird day, weather wise,

and they were saying there was a tornado warning.

Plan A for tornadoes.

Go to the bathroom, get in the bathtub.

I went outside and it was about 12 feet away.

I tried to shut the door.

I don't know why I was trying to shut the door, so it's so hard.

But I thought maybe if I shut the door, keep the big bad monster away.

I don't know what happened to me,

but I recall thinking to myself, "Okay, I'm gonna die now."

Nah.

My daughter's room really was, uh, decimated.

The wall came in, caved in, the window caved in.

Uh, giant limestone blocks that weigh 75, 80, 100 pounds

thrown across her bedroom.

I'm really glad that my daughter wasn't in her bed.

Had she been in her bed or her bedroom,

we would have a different outcome.

A lot of good memories at that house.

Raising two beautiful daughters,

first steps, you know, and all that was gone.

Everything just gone.

At 6:35 p.m.,

the tornado finally lifts after being on the ground for 41 minutes,

and thankfully, there were no deaths.

But 16 people were injured.

The tornadoes in Jacksboro...

The tornadoes in Round Rock.

Those all happened on a single day.

But March 21st in Texas,

that's just the beginning for what would be

a period of intense frequency of tornadoes.

It would be a week's long tornado outbreak.

My name is Jay Prater, and I'm the managing meteorologist

at KAKE Television in Wichita, Kansas.

This part of the country does experience its share

of significant and violent tornadoes.

It was business as usual.

My wife is cooking dinner.

My kids are playing amongst themselves.

We could see the beginnings of the tornado starting to form.

You know, it kind of looks like a little spaghetti noodle.

Kind of snaking down towards the ground, if you will.

But at this point, it was nowhere near the ground.

As I'm on the air I'm looking at the radar, um,

it's looking eerily similar to the worst storm in Andover's history.

You can't live in Andover without being

very acutely aware of the 1991 tornado.

On April 29th, 2022,

uh, I'm on the air watching this tornado develop rapidly,

and it's looking scary.

Uh, on the ground,

I've got several storm chasers

trying to get a visual on this tornado.

Around 8:15 p.m., one of the storm chasers sends up a drone.

We have a confirmed tornado that is about to roll through

a very populated part of Andover.

This is when people are gonna get hurt or killed.

We have a significant tornado.

And it's approaching an elementary school.

And it's growing in intensity.

It's starting to get very scary.

All of this is occurring on the east side of Andover Road,

so I'm... I'm only focusing on "Where is it?

And where is it going?"

We have a life threatening event in progress right now.

Your heart sinks.

I started taking pictures

and realized that we had something on our hands

that It was going to be the most amazing spectacle

of Mother Nature that I could have ever witnessed.

At the time,

It had some distance, you know,

so I didn't think it was going to hit us.

Looking back at it, it was dumb.

I saw my wife and children were okay, but just looking around

and seeing what used to be is no longer there,

It just... You can't even process it.

You're just almost in denial.

Did this really just happen?

And is this real life?

You know, am I dreaming?

In the snap of a finger,

your home is no longer your home.

Now it's starting to make a turn from a northeast track

to a more northerly track.

And your thought is, I really hope everybody got the word,

heard the word, took action and wound up being safe.

My name is Wesley Schnauber.

I live in Andover, Kansas.

Lived there all my life.

I was working as front desk at the Y.M.C.A.

I'm looking out the the window with my friends and...

and the top of the tornado's coming down from the clouds.

I start to see debris circling the tornado,

and that's when I realized that it is bad.

That this is serious and we need to start taking action.

As we enter the locker room, there's a father and son next to us.

And they're just praying.

I'm not a religious man myself,

but that... It kind of struck something in me.

That's... I felt like I could die here.

So we've got that circulation.

Yes, Deb, go ahead.

I walk out in the lobby

and the front of the Y.M.C.A. is gone.

There's just about 10-12 cars

just thrown through the front of the lobby.

And it's just this...

I mean, it looks like an explosion went off.

It's truly

terrifying to walk out there and see that that this just hit us.

The tornado is intensifying as it continues its track to the north.

My daughter, who is a sophomore in high school,

is having her recital at an outdoor amphitheater

which is right in the path of the tornado.

Okay, Time to call Kelsey, the director of my daughter's dance studio.

But it does look like emergency management

is saying that there are reports of structure damage

along the path. Yeah, it's still out there.

I get a report in that at the amphitheater

was damaged at Andover Central Park.

That's when I had the rush of reality

that, thank God my daughter was not there.

I very rarely do that kind of thing.

But fortunately, Kelsey took my advice.

You only hope that all of your messaging,

everything you have done

has people taking action and getting out of harm's way.

April 5th, I got off work, and I talked to a buddy of mine

and we agreed to meet at a Black Creek Golf Club.

And the tornado warnings went off on our phones.

I need to get inside and try to find somewhere to hide.

But the problem was, all three of the doors were locked.

It definitely stirred something in me,

and it gives me chills still today,

thinking about that moment actually.

If the tornado had any higher rating,

it would have, like, it sucked us out of that...

That locker room.

I just sat there in the driveway

with my headlights of my truck shining

on what used to be our family home.

And I just sat there for a minute and...

It was...

You see...

You see what you work so hard for

and, uh, you see what you worked so hard to build

and do for your family, and it's just gone.

Tonight, we take a closer look at the damage

yesterday's tornadoes left on multiple communities.

Officials estimate that nearly 60-80 homes

were damaged in the storm, with debris stretching over two miles.

You're both in awe of nature,

but your gut churns a little bit because you understand

the destructive power that is being unleashed.

We lived it, and to say that we came out of that unharmed is a true miracle.

God had truly done something miraculous in keeping us all safe.

I wouldn't have wanted my boys to go through a tornado

with anybody else because he he's definitely amazing.

So, he just did a great job. He's a hero.

He took care of those kids.

He made the right choices.

And, um, you know, the elementary staff and students

should be forever grateful for him.

Don't ever doubt nature because she doesn't play.

That day was very... It was a pivotal moment in my life

that I needed to do something different.

I bounced back. I'm completely bounced back.

I'm in school.

I'm working hard. I'm still a mom.

I was reluctant to leave after the tornado hit us.

Everybody told me, just, you know, maybe it's a good time to cut and run,

but I'm terribly stubborn.

And so I did not want to cut and run.

Being so close to, I guess, death in a way like it's...

just how...

precious it all is, I guess,

how it could be taken away

in a flash and...

I don't know. It's the best way I could put it.

Precious. Life is precious.