‘Cannot Be Replaced’: Residents Begin To Recover From Recent Tornadoes (Pictures)

Four tornadoes swept across North Texas over the weekend, leaving toppled trees, broken car windows and demolished homes. Days later, the carnage was still present on the sides of roads and in nearby communities. Seven people, including four children, were killed by one of the tornadoes that struck the Valley View area of Cooke County. This was an EF-3 that brought winds of up to 135 mph and cut across three counties, Cooke, Montague and Denton.

Another EF-3 ran through Celina with winds of up to 165 mph, destroying several homes in its path.

Rogelio Aragonez wasn’t at his Celina home of 32 years when a tornado blew through town. But, his wife, Maria Aragonez, was. They were both on their land on Wednesday as volunteers from surrounding communities helped clean up the mess left by the storm. “My wife was in here by herself,” Rogelio said. Luckily, his grandson lives nearby and went to pick up Maria before a tornado destroyed their home.

Maria said when she got to her grandson’s home they headed for the closet. Before they could make it there, the windows in the house started to break. “So, we went into the closet and then we threw a mattress on top of us,” she said. “It was terrible. I’ve never been through one of these. I was screaming and screaming.” She said the tornado sounded like a train. She guesses the tornado blew her home away just 10 minutes after she left.

Rogelio and Maria lost a lot of belongings to the tornado, but they still feel lucky. “I’m just glad that all my family’s safe,” Rogelio said. “All this stuff, it’s material stuff. It can be replaced, but the human beings cannot be replaced.”

Cleanup efforts continue in both communities as affected residents make plans for recovering and rebuilding. We drove through Cooke County and Celina on Wednesday to see the devastation firsthand.

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