EF-0 tornadoes damage homes in DeSoto, Johnson County

The National Weather Service confirms three EF-0 tornadoes touched down in North Texas early Tuesday morning.

The tornadoes damaged dozens of structures in the Johnson County towns of Godley and Joshua as well as DeSoto in Dallas County.

Video from SKY 4 showed plenty of roof damage and fences blown over in DeSoto in the area of South Westmoreland Road and Eagle Drive, just north of DeSoto High School.

The DeSoto Police Department said the tornado passed through the area around 4:45 a.m. with winds reaching 95 to 100 miles per hour. About 30 homes were damaged but no one was hurt.

Felicia Davis is counting her blessings. She and her husband were asleep in their master room when the tornado winds collapsed a wall in their guest bedroom.

“As we looked around, we noticed that is was just this room and that room that had the most damage,” she said.

SKY 4 video shows a piece her neighbor's garage pierced through Davis' roof.

Chris Spellman ran down the hall to his young daughters’ room after he heard a loud crash, but he couldn’t get in.

“The door itself was kind of wedged in between the hinges,” he said. “I kind of had to rip it off the hinges to get them out of there."

The noise that Spellman heard was an EF-0 tornado hitting his DeSoto home.

“I was thinking, ‘What was that? I know it's not a train back there or anything.’ And then I started hearing crackling noises from the roof actually coming off,” he recalled.

But despite the inconvenience, residents are seeing the positive.

"The beauty of it is having life and having my loved ones being here without anyone getting hurt or having any kind of injuries,” Spellman said. “This is just stuff. It can be replaced. But my kids and my wife, they can't be replaced. So that's the most important thing for us."

A city spokeswoman says the southwest part of DeSoto got hit the hardest by the tornado. It caused damage to nearly 30 structures. The city says all of the debris from the storm has been cleared from all city streets. No injuries were reported.

In Godley, two people were hurt after several mobile homes near FM 917 and Wildberry Trail were severely damaged.

Jennifer Chezem lives in the area. She heard the weather getting bad around 3:45 a.m.

"Just heard howling winds and debris hitting the house. It came in as quick as it left. It was pretty scary," she said.

Afterward, when she went outside, she saw her neighbor's mobile home flipped over. She and her husband ran to check on them. They found their neighbor's disabled daughter on a mattress. Her mother was buried under the debris.

"We just went into rescue mode and tried to get her out,” Chezem recalled. “Luckily, the fire department showed up because my husband wasn't able to lift the floor off of her. The floor was basically what was on top of her."

Buddy Wilson says it his wife and his step-daughter that were hurt when the trailer was destroyed. He recalled finding his wife buried in debris.

“They found her because her foot was sticking out from beneath it. Her daughter can't walk, and she was crawling around trying to find her,” Wilson said. “They won't know if she's paralyzed probably for a while because it broke two bones in her neck, and she's got real bad laceration on her arm."

Wilson’s neighbors described the howling winds and debris hitting the home. Wilson lives a quarter mile from where the damage occurred. He says his wife is a full-time caretaker for her daughter after she was in a serious car accident about six months ago.

Wilson says his wife briefly opened her eye at one point and that was an encouraging sign for him. He says she has a fighting spirit and they are very hopeful she pulls through.

No other major injuries were reported.