Power Outage in Chatfield, TX

Several large trees and power poles were knocked down in a 7 mile stretch from Chatfield, TX to the northeast part of the county line. Damage was associated to straight line winds.

A strong EF2 tornado hit the town of Rice damaging several homes, derailing train cars, damaging a school, and overturning cars on the interstate. The tornado began about 4 miles outside the town limits of Rice and first damaged two homes near NW 050 road. One of the homes was completely destroyed. About a mile and half later, the tornado struck another home causing the exterior walls to collapse and taking the roof off the home. Next, the tornado entered the town of Rice and moved over a train track derailing 11 train cars. One of the train cars ended up in the nearby baseball field of the high school. The baseball field and nearby football stadium was also damaged, and the softball field was completely destroyed. Power poles and bleachers were damaged at the football and baseball field. At the softball field, the fences, dugouts, scorekeepers stand, scoreboard, light poles, and bleachers were all destroyed. The tornado then damaged an intermediate school causing one wall to lean and peeling the roof off the gymnasium. Next, the tornado crossed Interstate 45 where it overturned a few cars and trapped some people. One 18 wheeler carrying a dump truck lost the dump truck which fell onto a car traveling in the other direction. The driver of the car sustained minor cuts. East of the interstate, the tornado damaged 4 more homes causing mainly roof damage to the homes. The roof damage east of the interstate was mostly EF1 intensity. A total of 4 persons were injured during this tornado. All were transported to area hospitals with minor, non-life threatening injuries. In addition to the structural damage, trees were snapped along the path of the tornado. The maximum sustained winds were estimated to be 135 mph.