Storm’s Path Bypasses Northern Cities

Fruitvale ISD Superintendent Bill Boyd had stayed on campus late into Wednesday afternoon when he got a rather concerned call from his sister in Arlington.

"Mark Parkerson (Fruitvale High School principal) and I were still on campus doing signal tests on the alarm system…I suddenly got a call on my cell phone from my sister. She had been watching the news on (KDFW) Channel 4 up there and Fruitvale was mentioned in the path of a possible tornado," Boyd said.

That was when the alarm test took a back seat and emergency preparedness went into action.

"We started gathering kids and getting them to a safe spot, and getting our custodial people in safe areas," Boyd said, noting that the school basketball teams were in practice sessions in both gymnasiums.

As it turned out, the weather spared Fruitvale.

"We came out of it exceptionally well," Boyd said, adding that there was no damage found to any of the buildings.

"We had some small hail with intermittent pieces that were a little smaller than a golf ball, but not a lot of it," he said.

Grand Saline officials were on high alert for a time as well, city administrator Stephen Ashley said.

"I was here (city hall) up until we saw the storm take more of a southern approach, but we had a lot of volunteers ready to go and act with the fire and police departments if necessary. We were definitely ready after we started hearing reports of tornadoes on the ground in the Canton area and that they were headed our way," he said.

Ashley said only the south side of Grand Saline received significant hail and that it was possible some roofs and vehicles were damaged by that.

"We had just pea-sized hail with an occasional bigger piece on the north side of the city. It was a little closer to golf-ball sized hail on the south side," he said.

"The storm kind of went somewhere between our southern border and (Farm-to-Market Road) 1255 and threaded that needle up through Sand Flat and Silver Lake," Ashley added.

No storm-related damage was reported in Edgewood.

"There were no problems at the schools…it looked the storm was too far south to affect us," Edgewood ISD Superintendent Jack Shellnutt said. He did say that the homes of two teachers near Canton did take damage in the storm.