Five Years After the Dallas Tornado of October 20 2019

Today, October 20, 2024, is the 5-year anniversary of the EF3 Tornado that ravaged our neighborhood. Our chimney was smashed by a piece of concrete flying off a neighbor’s house, our roof was damaged and needed to be replaced, our garage door was destroyed, and the wiring and pipes in the attic were destroyed. In addition, our fence was damaged, and my grill flew across the yard. The cost of the repairs was $50,000.00. However, we were lucky compared to many of our neighbors whose houses were destroyed.

A neighbor’s house with the roof ripped off.
A neighbor’s house the morning of October 21st, 2019.
Debris on the street from a neighbor’s destroyed house.
Another neighbor’s house. This house was about 100 yards from our house. It took a direct hit from the tornado.

The house of my wife’s parents was more severely damaged than our house. The wind from the Tornado lifted my 89-year-old father-in-law up in the air and he was hit by a broken marble table that injured his back. He had a sore that was about one foot long. He did not go to the hospital. The school where our boys used to go, St. Marks School of Texas, was badly damaged and the walls of the gymnasium blew away. The neighborhood looked terrible afterwards.

My wife Claudia is walking among the debris in my in-laws house.
Inside Claudia’s parents’ house. This was the morning after. We are walking into their house to check on them (that’s my wife).

It was also a tough time for our Leonberger dog Bronco. He was more than 12 years old, which is old for a Leonberger, and he had various age-related illnesses. Earlier in October he had amputated a toe due to a type of cancer called squamous cell carcinoma. One week after that we discovered a large deep ulcerous sore on the same paw a few inches above the surgical scar. Fortunately, it was not cancerous, as we first thought, but we would have to treat this sore in addition to nursing him back from his amputation. In addition, he also had the first signs of geriatric-onset laryngeal paralysis polyneuropathy (or GOLPP).

Our Leonberger Bronco is in the background. Our pug Daisy is sitting on a chair in the kitchen.
Bronco our Leonberger and Daisy our Pug the evening before the big storm. None of us suspected what was about to happen.

We lost power for four days due to the tornado and about one week after the tornado Bronco had a congestive heart failure. He eventually recovered but October 2019 was a very difficult month for him.

Bronco is laying on the ground facing the broken fence. He has a plastic bag around his bandage.
Bronco had just had a toe amputation. He did not blow down our fence.
Mini-Australian Shepherd standing guard over medical equipment next to his big brother the large Leonberger Bronco.
We had to change Bronco’s bandages every now and then but Rollo, our mini–Australian Shepherd made sure we did it right.
Rollo our mini-Australian Shepherd is on the left and Bronco our Leonberger is on the right. He is wearing a bandage on his back leg.
Bronco and Rollo a few days after the Tornado.

I remember October 20, 2019, as if it was yesterday. I was sitting outside in my backyard drinking my favorite SMASH IPA, Yellow Rose, from Lone Pint, Texas, ABV 6.8%. IPA stands for India Pale Ale, a type of beer that contains a lot of hops. SMASH IPA is an IPA brewed with one type of Malts and one type of Hops (Single Malt, Single Hop). The single hop in this case is Mosaic. My phone started making a loud sound. It was an alarm announcing a tornado warning and, in the distance, I could hear a faint tornado siren. At first, I thought it was nothing but when I saw the lightning approaching, I decided to go inside. Two minutes later a hailstorm made things very loud, the wind was strong, and the house shook, and then we heard a loud explosion. That was a concrete block that had smashed our chimney.

A photo of a beer glass next to a can of Yellow Rose IPA. The beer label shows a young woman in a yellow and green outfit.
I was sitting in my backyard drinking Yellow Rose my favorite SMASH IPA, not knowing that a tornado was advancing down the street nearby.

After the wind had died down a bit, I opened the door to the backyard, and what I saw shocked me. My gas grill had flown across the patio. There were bricks and pieces of concrete all over the patio and the lawn. There was a big sheet of metal lying on the patio. Big tree branches covered the lawn. There was debris everywhere. We had also lost power. It turns out that the EF3 tornado had gone through our neighborhood and passed within fifty to one hundred yards of our house.

This house is totally destroyed.
Another neighbor’s house (a bit further away from us).

My wife Claudia asked me to go check on her parents. I drove about 50-100 yards when a neighbor’s roof lying across the road stopped me. I turned around but this time I was stopped by a large pile of trees lying across the street. So, I started walking, but this time I was stopped by a group of firemen telling me that it was too dangerous to be outside. They told me to go back home, and I did.

The entire top of this house is gone.
This is the next-door neighbor of Claudia’s (my wife) parents.

I can add that we got some unexpected help from our congressman at the time, Colin Allred, congressional district 32. My wife left the neighborhood in her car, but the police would not let anyone back in. This made it difficult to, for example, go shopping. I complained about this on Colin Allred’s Facebook page and within hours I received an email from Colin Allred’s legislative director (Judith). They had contacted city hall and the police and now the police would allow residents back in the neighborhood as long as they could show ID. Colin Allred’s office had my email from a previous communication. I did not leave that with my Facebook comment. My wife was happy since she now could go shopping.

Below are some additional photos that I took, showing the carnage in the neighborhood.

The Gap is a big store, but it had the entire backside ripped off.
The remains of the Gap, a store at a nearby shopping center.
The house is completely flattened. A large tree is destroyed. It has no branches.
Destroyed house in the neighborhood.
Crashed cars and destroyed stores.
View of the shopping center in our neighborhood.
The yellow school bus is wrapped around a tree.
This was a school bus belonging to the school where my boys went.
Trees are ripped up, vehicles are crushed.
Streetview from the neighborhood.
A big nice-looking house destroyed by a tornado.
Another house in the neighborhood.
A photo taken from the inside of a destroyed office.
The remains of the veterinary clinic where we used to take our dogs. Luckily there were no animals staying overnight at this time.
A photo of severely damaged house. The roof is lying in the street.
Our street, just two/three houses down from us.

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

61 thoughts on “Five Years After the Dallas Tornado of October 20 2019”

    1. Yes you are right, but it happened so quickly, and we didn’t figure out what it was until I opened the back door and saw the aftermath. At first I thought it was kind of windy and that lightning had hit the chimney. When I saw that a few of the neigbhors houses were gone I realized it must have been a tornado. Bronco was completely calm the whole time.

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      1. That surprises me, though dogs can act differently. Our dog starts hyperventilating and freaking out when there are any loud noises (thunder, fireworks, etc.)

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    2. Yes they react differently. Bronco was very calm and unafraid of severe weather, thunder and wind did not bother him. The tornado did not bother him. Our dog Rollo is the opposite. He is very afraid of bad weather, especially thunder. However, even though he was afraid, he was not exceptionally afraid, just like a regular thunderstorm. In the past we’ve had a German Shepherd and a Japanese Chin who both were very afraid of bad weather.

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    1. Thank you so much Patricia. Yes I posted about it before. I was not planning to do it again but NBC called me a few days ago and wanted to interview me about the event. They had seen my previous posts about it. So I was first of all reminded about this and I also decided to make another post. We were lucky. Our insurance paid for everything (~$50,000.00) except for our parasol on the patio. It had flown away. We did not realize that it was gone until several months later.

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    2. Thank you Patricia. This NBC channel 5 in Texas sometime between 4:00PM to 5:00PM, but I think you may have to live in Texas. They interviewed several neighbors so there’s no guarantee I will be in it. They will make a video and post online so I will check.

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    1. You are right but it was much worse for some of our neighbors. We still had our house and could live in it even though we had no power or internet for 4 days. My wife’s parents had to move to first a hotel and then to an apartment. It was worse for them. One of our neighbors had been on vacation and when she came home she saw that her house was gone. She had called her son about the tornado who told her that most likely nothing had happened to her house, but he was wrong. We were lucky.

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  6. Wow Thomas you were lucky… Nature is an unbelievable force… Wind, Water and Fire, along with Earth-quakes… All the elements when in true force, man has little control over..
    My heart goes out to those who have also recently lost everything including loved ones and animal friends in the recent hurricanes across the USA…

    I am happy you were not hurt or your dear dogs, and that you were able to rebuild…
    I know many in these recent storms will not be so lucky as those mud slides took everything.. 🙏

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    1. Thank you so much Denise. No one was seriously hurt but my father-in-law was injured. He did not go to the hospital though. Then, of course, we don’t know if Bronco’s heart failure was partially caused by the tornado. We had no power for four days and it got a little bit hot.

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  8. I know for a fact that this anniversary date will be with your memories from now on, as it is for me when we went through a tornado. These photos show how much damage tornadoes can do, even in just a few minutes. I hope the people who had their houses completely torn apart were able to move forward in their lives.

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    1. Thank you Barbara. You are right. It happened very quickly. You certainly went through a harrowing ordeal with your tornado. I read that your tornado killed 26 people. It certainly was not as bad for us and we were lucky too.

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    1. Thank you so much John. Yes I certainly remember Harvey. That was a horrible hurricane, but we were safe in Dallas, far away. A lot of people lost everything in Harvey and I read that 107 people lost their lives. I am glad that you were not as effected by it.

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    1. Thank you so much Debbie. Rollo is very afraid of thunderstorms and bad weather but Bronco and Daisy were not worried. Bronco was completely unafraid of thunder, lightning, strongs winds and fireworks. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. He was just very calm and unafraid. Leonbergers tend to be very calm and confident dogs. I don’t know if pugs are calm dogs in general, but Daisy was.

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    1. Rollo gets very scared whenever there is bad weather. However, Bronco and Daisy are not afraid of thunder, lightning, strong winds or fireworks. They were fine. You are right. It was lucky that I decided to go inside and that all of us were inside. Imagine if I had been out walking one of the dogs.

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  15. Thank you for posting your memories and these horrific photos. From far away we get snippets on the news of the tornado but your photos and words tell a more complete and harrowing story of the damages which the tornado left behind. And we mustn’t forget the effect on our pets, something which I don’t recall the news covering.

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    1. Yes you are right. We forget about the pets. We were relatively lucky but I wonder about the pets that were in the houses that were turned into rubble. In the past they used to tell people to leave their pets during flooding from hurricanes and wild fires. After too many people simply refused to evacuate without their pets they have started to change that. In Australia a guy jumped out of a rescue helicopter after he found out theyt were not taking his dog. “Not without my dog” is a powerful statement.

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    2. Nobody died as far as we know, which is actually strange. There was a similar tornado in 2012 in a Dallas suburb, also EF3, about the same amount of destruction, actually this one had more destruction, and 12 people died in 2012 but nobody this time. If you imagine, thousands of bricks, thousands of pieces from roofs, dozens of concrete blocks, dozens of flying roofs, flying cars and buses, several dozens, maybe hundreds, of houses turned into rubble, destruction along a 15 mile path, and no one died. That is strange.

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    3. Yes you are right. No lives lost is a big relief. However, it was an expensive disaster and because of it and some other things that the insurance companies had to pay (hail storms and flooding and wildfires getting close to Dallas) our insurance premiums have sky rocketed. Also some insurance companies are refusing to insure certain neighborhoods in Dallas because of the increased risk of natural disasters. Our home premium has trippled over the last five years.

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  17. Tornadoes! I’m glad you came through this one fairly unscathed. I’ve never seen or been close to one, but for whatever reason I used to dream about them fairly often, back when I had the kinds of dreams I used to have. (I’ve never been close to an erupting volcano either but I used to dream about them a lot too.)

    Recently a tornado ripped through the area of Central New York where we used to live and did a lot of damage, including to the offices where my brother works. Apparently old brick buildings and tornadoes don’t mix well, or maybe they mix too well …

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    1. I’ve dreamt about tornadoes too but that was before I encountered one for real. Yes bricks can be really dangerous when they fly around like hail stones. Debris is what kills people. I’ve never seen a tornado either, but I probably would have if I had opened the door to check it out.

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    1. Sweden is also very safe from natural disasters. However, Texas is not. wildfires in the west and lately some appearing more east close to Dallas. Risk of droughts in most of the state. Hurricanes down by the coast and tornadoes and severe hail storms in northern Texas. Hailstorms sounds like it should not be something bad, but hailstorms have destroyed our roof twice and our cars three times. I remember walking out of the house after a hailstorm and seeing my car covered with 100+ dents. I said “oh crap” to myself. Luckily the insurance covered it. There are hailstorms in Sweden but you would never expect a small Swedish hail stone to make a visible dent on a car. There are some earthquakes but not any severe ones and they are mostly selfimposed from fracking.

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      1. Hi Thomas, the US does get a lot of natural disasters and global warming is making it worse. The US is responsible for a huge portion of global carbon emissions so maybe there’s a message there, or, we just hear more about natural disasters in the US and less when other countries are impacted. 💕

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    2. The US does get a lot of natural disasters and like you say is also responsible for a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact the US is responsible for 25% of the global cumulative emissions, China comes in second at 12.7% (from our world in data). However, I also think that the natural disasters in the US get more attention, certainly in the US, but from what I observed also in Sweden and elsewhere. The Bhola cyclone killed 300,000 people in Bangladesh in 1970, cyclone Nargis killed 138,000 in Myanmar 2008, Typhoon Nina killed 26,000+ in 1975, Hurricane Mitch killed more than 11,000 people in central America in 1998, Typhoon Haiyan killed 6,300 people in the Philippines in 2013. However, I think hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,392 in 2005 is still better known.

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  19. What a frightening experience, especially for your in laws! Thank God you all survived. I’ve been in several hurricanes, but at least we had plenty of warning. I think that’s what makes tornadoes scarier, that and The Wizard of Oz.

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    1. Thank you so much JoAnna. Like you say it was very frightening for my in-laws. My at the time 89-year old father in law was lifted by the wind and he held on to the door frame. He was injured but he survived and he just turned 94 years old in September.

      Yes that is one thing that makes the thousands of times smaller tornadoes so dangerous. Sometimes they can kill hundreds of people. They surprise you and another thing is that the most powerful tornadoes (F5 – 261mph) have much stronger winds than the strongest hurricanes (category 5 – 157mph). Small but intense and surprising.

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