The January 24th Texas tornado was a destructive EF3 tornado that tore through the southeast Houston metro area, causing significant damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure. It was part of a severe weather outbreak that affected the Gulf Coast region, producing multiple tornadoes, hail and straight-line winds.
Leading up to the Tornado
The tornado struck at 2:30pm. I, unfortunately enough, was using the bathroom at home minutes before the tornado struck. I do recall looking outside the bathroom restroom before the tornado stuck, and hearing how loud the wind was blowing against the combined with the grey sky only gave me the impression that it was going to rain. Earlier, I had been outside and I even filmed myself getting hit by the wind then since it was so strong.
My mom had been working in her office in the house whenever she received the notification from her phone saying “FIND SHELTER AND TAKE COVER NOW,” so she got up from her desk and went straight to wake up my brother and knock on the bathroom door where I was. I at first ignored her knock -a day before she was banging on the door because she had to use the restroom- but once I saw my phone’s warnings, I got up and left the bathroom. My brother had been napping after a morning class, but now awake, we started to get the dogs and we were able to peek outside of a second and we saw what looked like a roof in our front yard.
… We hear a large shattering noise from somewhere in our house. Immediately, I think that all of the windows are busted open in the house and everything is gone and drenched…
Once we got the dogs, we took shelter in my parent’s walk-in closet, as it was the most center “room” in the house and also the only “room” without a window. While we sat and heard the screams of wind roar past our house from the closet, we hear a large shattering noise from somewhere in our house. Immediately, I think that all of the windows are busted open in the house and everything is gone and drenched by the rain that followed the tornado. We wait for about four minutes in the closet and then get out to see the damage.
We walk out of the closet and once we step into the living room we see -nothing completely destroyed. We hear someone screaming help somewhere outside. We look around the house a bit more and we see that the window that was in my mom’s office has exploded towards the inside of the house and that the window next to the dining table is cracked and a little broken, but not incredibly destroyed. The inside of the house looks fine. At least the inside is fine, right?
We decide to look outside. Glass. Sirens. Rain. It looked like something out of a war scene from a movie that they would shoot anywhere else but in Pasadena, Texas.
The Immediate Damage
KPRC Channel 2 Interview
According to CoreLogic Reactor™, more than 18,600 homes worth an estimated $4.6 billion were potentially within the tornado path. The tornado also disrupted operations at petrochemical facilities outside of Houston. The tornado had winds up to 135 mph and was the first tornado emergency on record for southeast Houston.
Those That Watched
Once the tornado struck our neighborhood, a tree had fallen down in the front of my neighborhood, blocking one of the only ways to get out or to get in to the neighborhood. The second entrance and exit in the neighborhood is next to a intersection, which would be fine if it hadn’t been closed off. This caused every single driver that was trying to go down the road near my neighborhood to “reroute” through it, only to realize that there was no exit there and causing a traffic that went all around the neighborhood.
This traffic stayed in the neighborhood for about a week, and to make it worse, every single car that passed by my neighbor’s house would slow down and take a photo or stare in awe. I kept seeing this same action repeated every thirty seconds and the amount of companies that kept knocking at our doors and leaving their fliers left me furious, as it seemed like the people only came by to take a photo or make business.
I felt as if the only thing that I could do is take photos to show how many people just came by to film or take photos of the disaster that happened only to show their social medias what they saw without offering any assistance or even an ounce of humility.
Those That Helped
Out of the tons of cars that passed by to take photos, only two groups of people came by the house to give us supplies that we needed. Other than those two groups, the people that helped move the debris from my neighbor’s destroyed house were our own people in the neighborhood.
The Damage
The tornado was part of a larger system of severe thunderstorms that tracked from coastal Texas into Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle from Jan. 24-25, 2023. It was the first F/EF3 tornado in Harris County in almost 21 years (since March 30, 2002) and only the 10th tornado to receive such a high rating in the county since 19502. Some of the areas that were most affected by the tornado were Baytown, Deer Park, Pasadena, and La Porte.
My Brother’s Interview in The Houston Chronicle
Dylan Mosquera, 22, lives in front of Ayala in Pasadena and had a similar thought when the tornado hit, he said, as he and his mother, Omaria, cleaned branches and debris from their yard.
-The Houston Chronicle
He was asleep when the tornado passed through and was woken up abruptly by his mom.
“That’s when I heard the house explode,” he said. “It was a real ‘Wizard of Oz’ moment.”