Monday, May 5, is the 30th anniversary of what the National Weather Service calls, “The costliest hailstorm in the history of the U.S.,” when a combination of atmospheric events produced large hail driven by winds up to 50 miles per hour.
The 1995 storm caused more than $2 billion in damage across north Texas, an equivalent of more than $4.5 billion in today’s money, according to the Federal Reserve Bank inflation calculator.
The storm stripped trees, broke windows, injured livestock, and smashed cars. So many power lines were down across the Metroplex that it took three days for the electric company to reach many parts of Parker County and restore power. Windows stayed boarded up for weeks, and out-of-state roofing companies came in to nab their share of hundreds of damaged roofs across the Metroplex.
Called the Texas Cinco de Mayo Hail Storm in many record books, it is referred to as The Mayfest Hail Storm in some of the National Weather Service online records because so many injuries were incurred at the annual Fort Worth Mayfest that afternoon.
Care Flight nurse Rene Taggart lived in Aledo at the time and was stationed at the medical tent of Mayfest. Taggart and fellow Careflight nurse Melissa Irving were caring for two children when the hail began beating the tent and they quickly put the children under tables.
There is a creek that runs behind the Mayfest grounds which suddenly overflowed.
“The creek started rising and we had equipment in there like a defibrillator and a cardiac monitor,” Taggart said. I started unplugging the equipment as fast as I could while Melissa watched over the children and all of a sudden the creek swept through the back side of the tent and took the equipment away.”
The aftermath
“We couldn’t leave because all the electrical lines were down, and the police said it would be too dangerous,” Taggart recalled. “We were trying to treat the people that we could that were coming in, and when we finally left, the hail was almost up to our knees. Melissa and I had to hook arms and hold on to each other to walk because the hail was so deep.”
Both of the nurses’ vehicles were destroyed and they caught a ride back to Aledo with another nurse whose windows were broken but the truck was drivable. However, upon reaching Aledo, they found Old Annetta Road impassable because the hail was so deep.
In a home on Old Annetta Road, one could stand in the master bedroom and look out to the backyard through the wall because hail beat the wood siding and sheetrock away, leaving only the vertical studs.
The broken windows and ruined roof of Bill and Sharon Pate’s home in Aledo have long been repaired, but they kept a souvenir of the storm. There are half-dollar-size pockmarks where hail broke the tile on the front porch that still remain.
“The noise was horrendous,” Sharon recalled while standing with her husband on their front porch. “It was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself.”
Bill described a close call their daughter, Ashley, encountered. The garage door was closed when she and a friend returned from Aledo High School cheerleader practice and the couple had to sit terrified in the front seat as hail beat the friend’s car and broke the windows out around them.
“All the windows on our north and west sides of the house were broken,” Bill recalled. “The windows and the skylight were broken and the roof, of course, was ruined.”
The storm came without much warning and few knew how intense the hail would be.
“I actually was watching the news and the weather and they didn’t say anything about it,” Bill remembered.
“And then I heard all this noise, so I got up to walk out of the TV room to see what was causing the noise and that’s when all the windows blew out and the hail came in.”
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here