LONGVIEW (KYTX) -- Power is back on for thousands tonight after heavy storms ripped through parts of Gregg County yesterday. CBS 19's Abby Broyles takes us to Teague Park on American Legion Boulevard.
City leaders closed Teague Park today due to downed power lines and toppled trees, the debris left behind after heavy storms hit parts of Longview yesterday. We talked to homeowners today as people across the city try to clean up the damage left behind.
Powerful winds and lightning downed trees and power lines across the city Monday. On south Mobberly, a toppled tree crushed the Salinas family's SUV parked in front of their house. 8-year old Allison was inside her home when it happened.
"I was just crying, crying," Salinas said.
Thankfully, no one got hurt. The Longview fire department says there were no injuries reported Monday, but firefighters were busy, called out to downed power lines and electrical fires.
"I had the TV on and then there was just this explosion an the television went off," Cathy Cace said.
Lightning struck a tree outside Cathy Cace's house off McCann street late Monday afternoon, she was inside a front bedroom, just yards from where the tree was hit.
"The lightning hit at the top and it came all the way down the tree and all the way through the trunk," Cace says,"it knocked out the TV in our house, it caused our sprinklers to come on, it shook up our water system so all our water turned brown, we had certain electrical outlets that wouldn't work."
Tuesday morning, workers cut down the damaged tree at the Cace's home.
"I'm very very thankful, very happy the tree's gone because it was leaning pretty bad and we were really concerned about it falling into the house last night," Cace said.
Other home and business owners across the city are still trying to clean up.. The Salinas family trying to figure out what to do next, with another round of storms possible in the days ahead.
City leaders hope to have Teague Park reopened later this week. The Longview Fire Department cleared about a dozen power lines yesterday, and SWEPCO is reporting all power is on throughout the city tonight.
SWEPCO says to prepare for an outage, keep your cell phone with you, and have an emergency kit in your home with flashlights, batteries, a radio and water.
