City of Canyon reviews storm
Gwyn said that some people reported not hearing the warning sirens. He explained, “These are outdoor warning sirens. When you’re mixing outdoor warning sirens and 110 mph wind, flying debris, and other noise, it’s understandable inside a building or even standing outside.” Gwyn said that they were sounding the sirens within 90 seconds of the tornado hitting the area, so the sound of the tornado, much like a loud train, could have muffled the sirens.
JoAnne Culin with the Amarillo branch of the National Weather Service said that there have been four previous tornadoes touch down within the City of Canyon. The first one noted was in July of 1956, then another in June of 1962, which hit on the southern edge town. Two more were recorded in May of 1978 and 1987.
After the April 25 tornado struck, City Manager Joe Price had called Chief Gwyn and asked him to pick him up at his house, and the two went to the site of the tornado touchdown. They found pedestrian and vehicle traffic was basically clogging the streets, so they moved the command post to the Lawyers Title Building in town. After establishing a unified command post, the city departments represented were Police and Fire, Planning & Development, Communications, their Public Information (PIO) officer and Emergency Management people. Other agencies that participated were the Randall County Sheriff’s Office, Department of Public Safety and BMA. He added that the WTAMU Police Force also provided aid.
“All in all, we had 24 members of the Canyon Fire Department and 10 volunteer firefighters,” Gwyn said. “We called all our off-duty career staff, and we had 95 vehicles show up including fire trucks.”
The Canyon storm was assigned to a surveyors with the National Weather Service Office for damage assessment. The assessment determined it was an upper end, strong EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 110 mph, determined to have started along Hunsley Road and have traveled north to Madison Park neighborhood, then southwest to damage a home on Aztec Drive.
“We didn’t know how extensive it was until we got there. I vastly underestimated the numbers of onlookers we had, along with people that honestly just wanted to help. There were also companies being called in by insurance companies, too. We released the neighborhood, thinking that in the daylight, residents would be up and moving about, but we ended up having to recall people who had already been called in and released, mainly to control traffic in the area. The CFD members checked door to door for injured residents or damaged homes,” he said. “We sent our crew back to make sure we didn’t need to physically secure some of the homes from being burglarized.”
A total of 11 families were displaced at first from the storm damage; the number is now down to eight.
“We hear what the citizens are saying and we are listening. We are working on providing a new siren on Aztec Road and possibly around Hunsley Hills,” Gwyn said.