VALLEY VIEW — Two days after a tornado bulldozed through this small Texas town, residents sifted through piles of splintered plywood to salvage whatever they could.
A piano lay overturned amid rubble, near a still-standing gazebo. Faded photographs still littered the ground. Stuff, everywhere: a little girl’s silver ballet flat studded with gems, a Texas history book opened to a page about the Alamo, a wooden bookshelf, a Cabbage Patch doll.
Late Saturday night, the twister barreled through at least 50 miles of North Texas, packing 135-mph winds and flattening homes and businesses. Seven people were killed, and more than 100 were injured.
Valley View — a town of about 800 people in Cooke County 60 miles northwest of Dallas — bore the brunt of the storm, with more than 300 buildings damaged or destroyed.
Memorial Day, the second day of recovery, began bright, quiet and somber — a stark contrast to Sunday — as the community began to realize the magnitude of what had happened.
Officials had not yet identified the victims, but among the dead were two children, ages 2 and 5, and three family members found in the same home.
By Monday morning, a chain link fence surrounded the Shell gas station, where people huddled during the tornado, becoming one of the most recognizable sites of destruction in the town.
In a parking lot catty-corner from the gas station, cooks with the CoServ Snackin’ Wagon prepared breakfast tacos to feed field crews and residents. Nearby, the sun rose over the decimated string of houses making up Frf Estates, a mobile home community situated in the path of the tornado.
A faint alarm from a damaged home on J L Drive rang out. A broken ground pipe across the street gushed water into the air. The far-off sounds of machinery, mostly small dozers and idling vehicles, droned on.
Debris dotted the green space surrounding the hollowed-out homes, their hemming fences wrapped in wind-blown insulation, clothing and debris. A pack of dogs explored the wreckage, weaving between passing vehicles.
The victims
Family members said Laura Esparza, 49, and her two children, 15-year-old Miranda and 9-year-old Marco, were killed in the tornado.
The family was sheltering in a room of their Valley View mobile home when the tornado hit with little warning. Refugio “Cuco” Esparza, 49, Laura’s husband and the children’s father, survived, as well their 24-year-old son, Miguel Esparza, according to family members.
Irma Esparza, Refugio’s sister, told The Dallas Morning News that her brother said the wind was blowing lightly then “suddenly changed to a brutal force,” lifting the mobile home and tossing it across the street.
Refugio found out the following day at the hospital that he had lost almost his entire family. “We are trying to encourage him, to support him. It’s a tough situation, can you imagine?” Irma Esparza said. “When he recovers well and no longer has his wife and children that he loved so much, it is a tragedy.”
A GoFundMe organized on behalf of the family has raised more than $53,000 as of Monday afternoon.
Those who survived the tornado were still reeling. On the night of the storms, Azucena Reyes was with her family in their mobile home on County Road 2131. Her husband, Nicolás Nevarez, was watching TV, and the couple received an alert that a severe storm was coming. Glancing outside, she saw an overcast sky with streaks of lightning.
”You couldn’t hear anything, you could hear only silence; in fact, so much silence was worrying,” Reyes said. “But, suddenly, I heard far away the sound of like a train, and that’s when I realized something was wrong.”
Reyes told her husband they had to leave. They pulled their daughter out of the bathtub, jumped into their truck and drove toward I-35. Before reaching the highway, they felt the car wobbling.
”I was looking back, and when the sky lit up from the lightning, I’m sure I saw the tornado. There was a big cone coming down,” she said.
They drove several miles south to Sanger, where they waited an hour for the storm to pass. When they returned, they saw people bleeding and homes destroyed. When they arrived home, they found their house’s roof blown off. Reyes said Monday she is convinced they will get through this because they saved the most valuable thing: their lives.
Yvette Rico, 15, whose house once stood on County Road 2131, recalled the terror. Her dad, José Rico; her mom, Deyanira Espíndola; and her sister, Kristal, 21, were at home, as were their many pets.
”I was in my room, and all of a sudden, the lights went out. So I went to my parents’ room, and they quickly yelled at us to get in their closet,” Yvette recalled. “We were all together, and all of a sudden, I just felt how they threw us. I closed my eyes, and I heard screaming and a lot of noise, and then I passed out; something hit my head.”
When she woke up, Yvette had intense pain in her left arm, but, as best she could, she got up and started screaming to look for her family. With the help of neighbors, Yvette and her family got to the nearby Shell gas station, which had largely been destroyed. They waited there before being transported to the hospital.
Her sister required spinal surgery, and her father has a broken arm. Her mother has several bruises on her face. Yvette was released Monday. The family lost one of their dogs, Nahual. Two more, Bubu and Mimi, are in the care of others. Chiquis, a dog, and Micho, a cat, are still missing.
The recovery
Michael Martinez was attending church Sunday when he heard about the devastation. The 65-year-old Krum resident realized a friend living on County Road 2133 was affected, so he went to aid the cleanup.
He thought of one of his favorite sayings. ”It goes, ‘You can either go to church or become the church.’ That’s what we’re all doing here,” he said, leaning on a bin full of debris he and his daughter, Chelsea, had gathered from his friend’s yard. “This community is the church. We’re all here for a reason.”
With his friend’s house nearly cleared of rubble, Martinez said he would help the neighbors. One, he said, spent much of Sunday working alone, still in shock.
”So I’m going to plan on going over there and give him a hand. I’ll help out anywhere that needs to be helped,” he said.
Down the road, Juan Celestino snaked his Ford pickup between the parked vehicles and trailers. His 11-year-old grandson, Ayden Muñoz, sat on the open tailgate, calling out to residents and crews to offer water, bags of ice, chips and steaming fajitas from La Michoacana, a meat market in Denton.
The duo worked effectively, with Ayden banging on the pickup to signal to Celestino when someone wanted what they were offering. Between swigs of Big Red soda, Ayden jumped down and handed off the supplies to thankful residents.
”Never seen anything like this,” Celestino, 55, said of the devastation as he drove from house to house. He parked where workers employed by his construction services company were mending a thrashed roof.
After stocking back up on supplies, he headed to the next street over to start again.
Meanwhile, area churches, businesses and aid organizations scrambled to provide food, water and resources.
The John Fortenberry Community Center on South Lee Street was filled with so many cases of water, food and supplies that people inside had to squeeze by each other to walk. Outside, teams in pickups and with trailers loaded their vehicles to deliver supplies to the worst-hit neighborhoods, including Frf Estates. Volunteer Kristy Spainhour said the outpouring of support isn’t surprising.
”We always show up for each other,” she said. “We always rally, and we always do what needs to be done.”
The Salvation Army, which ran a mobile kitchen Monday in Valley View, likely will remain in Cooke, Denton and Collin counties Tuesday, said Major Paul McFarland, area commander of The Salvation Army of North Texas.
Pamela Wiebe has not slept much since she heard about the tornado ravaging Valley View. The co-pastor of Christian Gathering Church of Valley View arrived by 6 a.m. to host breakfast for first responders and Valley View Mayor Janson Bewley.
One first responder asked Wiebe to pray for him and his crew. Ahead of possible storms, she’s preparing for people to flock to her church for safety.
On Monday, Travis Middlebrooks, owner of York ‘N Ale Burgers, cooked burgers and gave out drinks, all free for first responders, locals and just about anyone who needs help. Middlebrooks opened the bar and restaurant two months ago in Valley View’s town square. Though he’s a Gainesville resident, he said he wanted to start his business in Valley View because of the tight-knit community.
Middlebrooks will be serving free food today through Wednesday, along with his father, Bob Middlebrooks, and chef Riley Davis, before returning to normal operations Thursday. People showed up for the burgers, of course, but also something more.
“The burger was great, but it’s the hospitality that got me as soon we walked in. The first words out of the owner’s mouth were ‘We’re ready to serve you,’” said Adolph Aguirre, executive director of DFW Metro West for the Red Cross. ”It was humbling and something that makes you walk away with the impression that these individuals are really sacrificing an entire day of their business for this community.”
Staff writer Gabrielle Beechert contributed to this report.
