JASON WEINGART: That was the first time I had seen damage that extensive.
COMM: Storm chaser Jason Weingart captured
this dramatic footage on the 29th April as Eastern Texas was battered by the most
severe weather it had experienced in recent memory.
JASON WEINGART: We’e been documenting these
storms from about an hour. They started producing tornados and then dropped several more tornados.
JASON WEINGART: The second one did quite a bit damage, just south of Canton.
JASON WEINGART: This tornado was a really
intense chase, so it was difficult terrain with a lot of trees, it was a populated area.
We knew that the tornado was doing damage and we were coming up highway 19, and this
thing is now just a huge rain wrapped ledge tornado and it’s crossing the road, just
right in front of us, maybe like a quarter mile up the road.
JASON WEINGART: Oh, wow! Look! Everything
is destroyed right here.
COMM: After the storm had finished its assault
on the area, Jason was able to see just how much damage it had done.
JASON WEINGART: And at that point I started
to slow down our vehicle, I look out and it’s just devastation everywhere.
JASON WEINGART: We look over and see this
woman crawling out of the rubble, and she is screaming for help, so I jump out of the
vehicle and go running up towards her fence line and asked if it’s okay, if I come in,
“Do you need help?”, and she said, “Yes, I do”.
JASON WEINGART: Is he gonna spit on me or what?
JASON WEINGART: The woman’s name was Sally
Knox and she starts taking me back down towards her house to show, you know, exactly what
had happened and turns out she has a farm with all these different exotic animals like camels,
zebra, horse, monkeys, parrots, I mean, all kinds of different stuff. Some were missing,
some were hurt. She showed me different things that have been thrown across her yard.
JASON WEINGART: Look at my house, it used to be right there…
JASON WEINGART: And she looks down and she
sees one of her little foals, just a couple of months old.
SALLY KNOX: Oh, no! Help me! Help me! The baby is stuck.
JASON WEINGART: I’m assuming that the winds
had picked that little foal up and carried him across the yard, and just wedged him beneath
that fence, and then kind of threw the debris on top of him.
SALLY KNOX: You’re gonna have to drag it up that way.
JASON WEINGART: So, I just grab its tiny legs
and just started pulling as hard as I can, and after couple of seconds I pulled it out
from under the fence and I got it out, but it still wasn’t getting up, and I was afraid
that it might be hurt.
JASON WEINGART: There he goes! There he goes!
He’s good! It’s alright! It’s alright! Let’s just get him out of here. He’s fine,
he’s fine. He’s fine!
JASON WEINGART: It was the first time I’d
come across a damage path that was that fresh and that extensive, and it’s not what I
like to see when I’m out storm chasing, but it’s something that as a storm chaser
you have to be prepared that you’re going to come across that from time to time.