As a record storm swept South Central Texas Wednesday morning, July 15, sending streams rising and dousing the region with inches of rain across San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country, a tornado touched down on the Northside of the Alamo City. It etched a path of destruction from UTSA Boulevard to The RIM shopping center.
“I’m not familiar with tornadoes, not at all,” Todd King told MySA from a sidewalk near the Tribute at The RIM apartments, which were notably hit by the tornado. “All these downed trees. We’ve got a sign here on the ground – I mean, this was some serious stuff.”
The roof was torn off the Oasis Apartments along UTSA Boulevard; letters were ripped off a Marshalls above a caved-in front door; and the Santikos Palladium Theater had rubble strewn across the front after the strong winds ripped off the façade.
Eric Platt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service San Antonio-Austin office, confirmed with MySA this morning that a tornado touched down near the luxurious Dominion neighborhood and moved north toward Leon Springs. However, it will likely be days before NWS investigators finalize details of the tornado’s path and impact.
“That won’t take place for a while until we can get out there on a survey,” NWS meteorologist Jason Runyen told MySA. “There probably won’t be a rating on a tornado for a while until we can get out there and survey the damage… The county and the city are still assessing all the damage, so it’s very, very preliminary stuff that’s coming in.”