Jacksboro, Texas principal escapes twister in harrowing video

A robust twister devastated a Texas metropolis’s elementary faculty and highschool campus — and despatched a principal operating for security as a ceiling collapsed, intense new video exhibits.

Safety footage launched by the district exhibits the moment one in every of 27 tornadoes made a direct hit on March 21 at Jacksboro Elementary Faculty and Jacksboro Excessive Faculty, the place winds as much as 150 mph ripped up fencing surrounding the soccer discipline and dramatically bent the goalposts.

A number of college students and staffers have been contained in the buildings when the twister touched down, together with elementary faculty principal Michael Qualls, who narrowly escaped as lights went out and particles began filling a hallway.

“Why God selected me to be in that scenario at the moment, I don’t know,” Qualls informed KDFW.

The heart beat-pounding clip additionally exhibits one other gymnasium on the campus full of flying insulation and particles because the EF3 twister swept by means of Jacksboro, a metropolis of roughly 4,500 about 60 miles northwest of Fort Value.

9 individuals have been harm and 90 houses have been destroyed in Jacksboro within the aftermath of the twister, officers stated. Nobody on the faculties of some 800 college students was injured, in response to KDFW.

Elsewhere in Texas, dozens of individuals have been harm and a 73-year-old was killed when a twister swept by means of Sherwood Shores, some 105 miles southwest of Jacksboro.

Highschool staffers returned to the battered campus on Monday and courses resumed there a day later, the Fort Value Star-Telegram reported.

The elementary faculty, which was extra closely broken, has not reopened and college students are taking courses on the district’s center faculty and at close by church buildings, the newspaper reported.

Contractors want extra time to organize the elementary faculty campus for a “protected return” for college kids, superintendent Brad Burnett informed mother and father in a letter Monday.

Gov. Greg Abbott, in the meantime, signed a catastrophe declaration for 16 counties to assist pace up restoration after the devastating tornadoes.