Straight line winds, T-storms slam Gonzales

Gonzales residents spent the majority of a San Jacinto Day Friday morning cleaning up the aftermath of straight line winds from a severe thunderstorm that rocked the community hours earlier.

County Emergency Management Director Jimmy Harless said the National Weather Service out of New Braunfels reported possible gusts of up to around 55 mph hit Gonzales between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. Friday, April 21. It was hard to confirm however as visibility on the radar dropped from 10 miles to just 3,000 feet.

Some Inquirer readers reported seeing marble and grape-sized hail at their homes and up to nearly four or five inches of precipitation. Portions of streets, including Saint Lawrence, Saint Louis, Saint Vincent, Saint Matthew, Saint Michael, Fischer, Davis and Division, were inundated with flood water that also came into homes.

The storm uprooted trees at Independence Park, snapped branches and downed power lines all over town and even damaged playground equipment at the old East Avenue Elementary school, which now houses the Gonzales ISD Administration building.

Some 1,400 Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative (GVEC) customers — including nearly 500 who have City of Gonzales utilities — were without power from just before 1 a.m. until nearly 11:30 a.m., when service was finally restored to all but 12 homes, per GVEC.

The outage impacted traffic controls on Sarah DeWitt Drive at the intersections with Water Street, Saint Joseph, Church Street and Waelder Road.

Due to concerns about the lack of power at several campuses as well as possible obstructions in roadways that could impede buses, Gonzales ISD canceled classes Friday.

Harless said there were no casualties reported, but one man had to be rescued from a vehicle stuck in high water on County Road 228, just south of Farm-to-Market Road 532. Another four individuals were evacuated close to Tinsley Creek inside Gonzales. A local church helped place them temporarily in a hotel and Red Cross will be assisting the family.

Harless said anyone who sustained property damage from severe storms, please submit a damage report to Texas Division of Emergency Management Individual State of Texas Assessment Tool (iSTAT) online at https://damage.tdem.texas.gov.