Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 15

Thursday, May 18, 1989 Austin American-Statesman A15 Deadly storms in Texas Kids unharmed as twister hits Round Rock elementary about 9:15 a.m. Moore described the damage as "extensive," but no dollar amount was available. He said water damage in the school, which opened in 1986, nearly equaled the tomado damage. After the wind stopped, rain continued to pour through the openings in the roof for the next hour. The tornado swept the west end of the school, taking off tin from parts of the roof.

The tin slammed into the windows of one of the kindergarten classes. Other damage occurred in the Learning Resources Room, music room, the library, and administrative offices. A cafeteria table sucked out a doorway was found outside. Five parked cars were damaged on the north side of the school, which is two miles northeast of the Texas 79 intersection with FM 1460. As Boon as the winds subsided, the 450 kindergarten through fifth-grade students were evacuated in a torrential rain to Round Rock High School, five and a half miles away.

About two dozen members of the high school's crisis team seniors appointed by administrators to help out in any emergency formed a welcoming line and greeted the younger children with a volley of reassuring chatter as they stepped off their buses. "How you doing, guys?" asked Nicholas Cool, a 6-year-old kindergarten student, said the tornado sounded "like a volcano." "I was very scared," said 11-year-old Dana Hockey, who was picked up by his father, Bill Hockey of Georgetown. "The door in the hall opened, and the winds blew some of the kids to the other side." Larry and Jan Hirt didn't have to go far to meet their first-grade son, Wayne. Jan Hirt teaches at Round Rock High School, and her husband is varsity football coach. Wayne, 7, said most of the kids in the hallway were crying, but the coach's son did not.

"I didn't want to cry," he said. Holly Reiter, a 12-year-old fifth-grader, was in music class when the lights went out and everybody started screaming. "We all held hands and felt our way out into the hall," said the daughter of Mike and Allison Reiter. "The doors flew open and the wind blew in. I was scared I thought the school was going to fall down." Gus Reichardt drove 27 miles from his job in Austin after an amateur radio operator passed on the news that his two sons' school had been evacuated.

Jacob Reichardt, a 10-year-old fourth-grader, said it was hard not to be scared during the high winds, thunder and lightning. By John Bryant American-Statesman Staff Teachers flung themselves over crying students huddled in the hallways of Double File Trail Elementary School on Wednesday morning after a tornado clipped the side of the Round Rock Bchool. But except for a student who had a speck of debris removed from his eye, there were no injuries. The tomado peeled the roof off the kindergarten, fifth-grade classrooms, cafeteria and gymnasium areas, and shattered windows throughout the school, said Principal David Moore. Severe weather drills and quick action by his staff and teachers saved the students from harm, he said.

"The teachers kept their cool and stayed calm, and covered the students with their bodies," said Moore. "Every teacher was doing that." Fourth-grade teacher Alison Hem praised the students. "The kids kept helping each other by holding hands and putting their arms around each other," she said. "I was really impressed." Buster Coleman, assistant Round Rock police chief, said one parent and two county road workers saw the funnel cloud dip down and hit the side of the school Staff photo by Mike Boroff High school teacher Terry Hollaway, right, helps Double File Elementary students off a school bus at Round Rock High School. Parents could pick up their children, or have them taken home by the regular elementary school bus run at 2:50 p.m.

About half the children were picked up early. Stanley's first-grade son, John who could not have known that adults always described tornadoes as sounding like trains said, "It sounded like a train." The 7-year-old pastor's son said he prayed as he crouched with the other students in the hall. Round Rock senior Philip Stanford. "Let's see a smile. That's cute bear.

You're in high school now." The students were led into six high school classrooms, where crisis team members provided enter-tainent with impromptu skits, games and color books. Steve Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pflugerville, was one of the first parents to arrive at the high school. sfs Jarrell man digs out after fatal tornado By Pete Szilagyi American-Statesman Staff Jacob's 7-year-old brother, Peter, called the adventure "fun." The second-grader said, "I did all the stuff my teacher told me." Rebecca Grana, a freckle-faced fourth-grader, complained that her father, Larry Taylor, picked her up before the high school served a bur-rito lunch to the elementary students just before noon. "I wasn't scared," the 9-year-old said, "We always rehearse for it." Jimmy Gonzales who works at Child Inc. in Austin, emerged from Round Rock High School with three of his children Julie Ann and Jimmy, both fifth-graders, and Missy, a second-grader.

Jimmy said he couldn't see his sisters as he crouched in the hall with his hands over his head. But he was thinking of them. "I just crossed my fingers and hoped that they were safe," he said. Carol Vander Meer, communications secretary for the Round Rock school district, said Double File Trail students will have classes today and Friday at the Westwood Ninth Grade Annex, 5720 McNeil Dr. Officials will decide Friday if students will return to Double File Trail on Monday or continue at Westwood annex.

The normal bus schedule will resume today. Staff writer David Matustlk contributed to this report. Georgetown hospital has atypical day By Cheryl Coggins Frink American-Statesman Staff GEORGETOWN When she started rounding up the Georgetown Hospital staff with her 5 a.m. disaster calls Wednesday, Cathryn Bryant, director of nursing services, didn't mince words. "This is a real one, guys.

This is not a test," she said as she alerted staff members. 7 The 66-bed hospital's emergency room usually has only two patients, but on Wednesday, 22 people injured in a tomado that roared through nearby Jarrell about 4 a.m. were brought in by Williamson County's four Emergency Medical Service ambulances and private vehicles. In addition, two victims were treated at Scott White Memorial Hospital in Temple. One of those, whose condition was unavailable, remained hospitalized Wednesday afternoon.

Most victims treated in Georgetown suffered minor abrasions, cuts and fractures and were discharged from the hospital by mid-morning. Two tomado victims, including one man who underwent surgery for facial and scalp lacerations, remained hospitalized in stable condition late Wednesday, a hospital spokesman said. Several of those treated at the hospital were injured in accidents on Interstate 35 where the tornado overturned more than a dozen tractor-trailers, Bryant said. The staff said it was one of their busiest mornings. "When I walked in, there were patients all over the place," said Dr.

Michael Nacol, an emergency room physician who arrived at the hospital about 7 a.m. "They were in the lobby and in the hall, just everywhere. This is not my usual morning." The number of patients dictated additional staff, so Bryant called 12 nurses and four physicians to the emergency room to assist the normal staff of one nurse, a hospital nursing supervisor who helps when needed and one physician. Specialists, including those in plastic surgery, were brought in as the morning progressed, Bryant said. Some of the patients weren't sure where to go after they were treated.

Trucker Terry Werner was still at the hospital just before noon trying to figure out how to get back to his tractor-trailer. Werner, who was hauling cereal and cake mix from Missouri, was "just bruised up" when the tornado flipped his truck from the southbound lanes of 1-35 near Jarrell, over the median, and into the northbound lanes of the highway. The truck cab landed on the driver's side, and Werner said he climbed out the passenger Bide. "I guess it's still up there," Werner said of the truck as he tried to line up transportation. One of Werner's fellow truckers, whose shoulder was broken when the tornado damaged his rig, discussed the morning adventure with hospital staff.

"Everybody's been real hospitable down here," the driver, from Ohio, said. "But I don't ever plan to come back." JARRELL Rain-spitting clouds roiled overhead and the fumes of leaking propane hung in the air as neighbors and friends gathered on Seventh Street just after dawn to watch Harold Thomas and two friends dig through his sodden, scattered belongings. A few walked over and hugged Thomas. A young woman cried disconsolately in a yard across the narrow street. And a volunteer firefighter in rain gear stood close by "In case Harold goes into shock," he explained.

An hour before, Thomas and emergency workers pulled the body of his wife, Sharon, from under the couple's waterbed and other debris left by a short-lived but devastating tornado. The Thomas' mobile home was one of dozens of stuctures in this town of 700 that was demolished or damaged by the storm. Sharon Thomas, 42, was the storm's only fatality in Jarrell. She was the bookkeeper and errand-runner for Auto Service, a repair shop just a few blocks from their home, neighbors said. The couple had been married 22 years, according to relatives.

"We were laying in bed side by side," her husband recalled quietly. "I heard it raining, rolled over, got out my watch and looked at it. It was 4:04. Thirty seconds later the trailer rolled over. First thing I did was reach over for her.

"The trailer's frame is over there," he said, Jarold Thomas of Copperas Cove takes a break from trying Stafl photo by Karen Warren to salvage some of the possessions his brother lost In the twister. pointing to a spot about 30 yards away. "It must have been upside down, but I never felt like I was upside down." "I didn't have any pants on and went over to the neighbor's, then I came back (to look for his wife). I was disoriented. It was dark.

And there was no power." Thomas, 43, later found his wife's leg protruding from under their water bed, which was thrown alongside his dump truck about 20 feet from where the bed had been in the could hear a heart beat, but she passed on," Myers said. Later in the morning, as he ducked from the rain on a neighbor's porch, Thomas looked down Seventh Street at the downed wires and trees, toppled cars and trucks, and the battered metal that remained of his home. "I guess I've got to start a different life," Thomas said to a neighbor. Staff writer Tara Parker Pope contributed to this story. house.

"I felt (her leg) it to see if (a pulse) was there," he said. He was joined by Jarrell volunteer firemen and other emergency medical workers who also were looking for a neighbor who, for a short time, was missing. Thomas said they punctured the water bed mattress to remove his wife's body. The dead woman's son-in-law, Clinton Myers, said he attempted to resuscitate her. "I blew air into her lungs, and I thought I WWMML i Tornado kills woman in Jarrell 16 trucks toppled, dozens of homes destroyed in Williamson town pi Area ol most destruction: 33 houses, 12 mobile homes and two school buildings 4 destroyed, 16 businesses ft severely damaged, 39 other structures and six barns damaged.

M5 if f''ffl0 feet 0 iv away, Baid Jim Dugan of the National Weather Service. Dugan said the twister's funnel cloud, estimated at half a mile wide, might have been on the ground as long as 20 minutes, but most of the area is devoted to agriculture and damage elsewhere was minimal. The storm that spawned the tornado dropped 1.65 inches of rain on Jarrell, according to the National Weather Service. Located in the blackland farm region, where tornadoes are relatively common, Jarrell has been fortunate because few of the storms have come through the city, several residents said Wednesday. One exception was in November 1987, when a twister demolished a barn and a farm supply business.

That storm, in which no one was injured, bypassed residential areas of the town. In what Jarrell residents call New Town, the section of the city west of 1-35, Susan Dotson said she was "still crunching glass and pulling insulation out of my ears." The Dotson's house, barn, several automobiles and 27-foot camper were destroyed. Near 1-35, Spencer Hubbard and his wife, Liane, had placed buckets and bowls under roof leaks to prevent further damage to the carpet and furniture. "You know you work all your life for this and it's gone," Liane Hubbard said. "It's hard, but it all seems trivial knowing that we're all all right." Diane Wheeler, a Red Cross spokeswoman, said the Red Cross will send caseworkers to Jarrell today to interview victims and deter- wreckers cleared the battered trucks.

The highway's four main lanes were closed until 8 a.m., and individual lanes were closed until early afternoon. About 50 residents went to temporary shelters at the First Baptist Church and the Jarrell school cafeteria. Most of the approximately 700 residents of Jarrell rely on farming and agriculturally supported businesses, as well as truck stops and service facilities for 1-35 travelers. One truck stop and at least one service station were badly damaged Wednesday. Witnesses said the storm's lightning and heavy rain began about 3:30 a.m., but the tornado came about 30 minutes later.

"Brown mucky water was swirling, and the wind just grabbed my truck. As soon as it set down I got out and jumped in a ditch," said Temple trucker T.E. Lancaster, who was driving south on 1-35. "Everything was going around," said tearful tavern owner Pedro Palomino, whose mobile home "was shaking and falling apart around us. You can see the pile; there's nothing left." Palomino, his 3Vi-year-old daughter, Beatrice, and wife, Rosa, escaped injury.

Officials report 33 houses destroyed, 16 businesses severely damaged, two school buildings and 12 mobile homes destroyed, and 39 other structures damaged. Six barns were damaged, as well. There was no cost estimate of the damages. The tornado carried debris from the town as far as seven miles lIUftNJMIIlt4 By Pete Szilagyi and Linda Latham Welch American-Statesman Staff JARRELL A tornado plunged from a driving storm into this small Williamson County town before dawn Wednesday, throwing trucks from Interstate 35, blowing apart or scattering dozens of houses and businesses, and killing one woman. At least 31 people were injured in the storm, which stopped clocks at 4:02 a.m.

Emergency officials said most injuries were minor, and many victims were taken to the hospital in private cars. Two victims remained hospitalized in Georgetown Hospital late Wednesday. Ray Welch and Audrey McDonald were in stable condition, according to a hospital spokesman. Their ages and addresses were not available. Many of the injured were in 16 tractor-trailers toppled by the tornado or blown from the road over embankments, authorities said.

"It's miraculous no more people were killed. It looked like a giant tornado came up 1-35 and skipped around and tore up the town," said Williamson County Sheriff Jim Boutwell. The dead woman was identified as Sharon Thomas, 42. Emergency medical officials Bay she apparently was crushed when trapped under a waterbed and other debris from her mobile home, which was pulled from its foundation and blown apart. Traffic on 1-35, which bisects Jarrell 40 miles north of Austin, clogged as power lines were removed from the pavement and 7MAYA Location of fatality fund, 2218 Pershing Drive, Austin, 78723 or call 928-4271.

Staff writers Cheryl Coggins-Frink, Arnold Garcia Jr. and Tara Parker Pope contributed to this report. V1J 1 WM Photo courtesy of Texas Highway Department Diagram of Wednesday's tornado destruction in Jarrell, superimposed on an aerial photo taken in July 1988. mine their needs. The organization is soliciting cash donations for the Jarrell relief effort but is not asking for clothing or food, she said.

Donors may send checks to American Red Cross, Jarrell relief.