SMITH COUNTY (KYTX) - Saturday's storm may have been brief but it caused a whole lot of damage.
Sunday East Texans cleared trees from their yards, while crews worked 18 hour shifts trying to fix fallen power lines. Strong winds that came with the storm have created headaches for people all over East Texas.
"The whole thing was like it was fixing to take off!"
Kim Stephens points to her trampoline as she describes what she saw from her back window as the storm blew past her house off of Highway 110 near Whitehouse.
"The furniture taking off and the trees actually swaying so far over I thought oh my gosh they're going to land on the pool."
Once the storm passed, Stephens realized the strong winds didn't just shake her trees they ripped them right out of the ground.
"It was so much racket going on you know? I didn't know it had uprooted them."
Trees weren't the only things damaged. Stephens shows us where pictures used to hang outside her house.
"It picked up these and just tossed them. And there they blow!"
Some people got it worse than others. Lots of trees fell on top of houses across East Texas, causing thousands of dollars in damage.
Eddie Fleming from Tyler knows just how that feels.
"I had one on my roof, and got it off," Fleming says.
He knows first hand how detrimental storm damage can be.
"My girlfriend's sister in law's Cadillac had a tree on top of it!"
So he spent his Sunday afternoon out in the heat, helping strangers clear their yards.
"I just met them this morning," he says, pointing to the yard he helped clean all morning. He drove by and saw a man trying to do the job himself.
"He got his own start out here with a tractor, and was 70 something years old so I stopped and helped him," Fleming said.
He says it's the least he could do. He estimates that the man's damage could add up to $15,000.
"At least $1,000 each tree," Fleming said, "and about $3,500 damage to the house."
Thankful no one was hurt, East Texans continue to lend each other a hand, in picking up the pieces.
