The whir of chain saws and the beeping of utility trucks were the most prominent sounds around Mineral Wells, Texas, on Wednesday afternoon, after a tornado the previous night ripped through a section of the city.<\/p>\n
In one industrial sector of Mineral Wells, a town of about 15,000 residents west of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, roofs had been sheared off buildings and other structures had been reduced to piles of what looked like matchsticks. But the destruction appeared limited to an area of commercial properties that were largely empty.<\/p>\n
Most residential homes in the area were unscathed, and no deaths were reported, though at least five people were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries and many residents were displaced, city officials said.<\/p>\n
Christopher Hester, 33, said that he was sitting in his living room with his wife on Tuesday afternoon when their front door suddenly burst open. He said they immediately took cover in the hallway of their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked up, and I just saw my roof flying up in the air,\u201d Mr. Hester said. \u201cBy the grace of God, we are alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Mr. Hester could not help but laugh at what he called the irony of losing his home. He and his wife had just moved into the duplex three weeks ago. On Tuesday, he said, he had just finished unpacking the second-to-last box from their move.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut hey, we\u2019re alive,\u201d he said. \u201cWe made it out of that catastrophic event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Hester said he and his wife did not incur major injuries, suffering only a few scrapes and bruises.<\/p>\n
Regan Wallace Johnson, the mayor of Mineral Wells, said that given the destruction, it was \u201camazing\u201d that residents had made it through the tornado without serious injuries. <\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, officials did not have a precise estimate of how many people had been displaced. Mayor Johnson said city officials were also working to determine how many people\u2019s jobs could be affected by damage to their workplaces.<\/p>\n
The debris was part of the trail of damage left by severe weather that has swept the central United States since last week, damaging homes and cars, flooding neighborhoods and knocking out power for thousands from Texas to Michigan to Kentucky. Over the weekend, a thunderstorm produced a tornado that hit towns an hour\u2019s drive north of Mineral Wells, leaving two dead, according to officials in Wise and Parker Counties.<\/p>\n
Thunderstorms that unleash a destructive combination of hail, tornadoes, heavy rain or strong winds can occur nationwide any time. But this is the time of year when they are most common, as a sometimes daily parade of storm systems moves across the central part of the country. Predicting when, exactly, a typical springtime storm will turn into something more dangerous can be difficult<\/a>.<\/p>\n