Unbelievable video footage from Mary Phan caught the moment on October 27th that a short duration Tornado ripped across Interstate 10 in Orange, Texas approximately 50 miles northeast of Houston near Beaumont and Port Arthur.
The footage is terrifying and shows the tornado carve a path of destruction through the properties on either side of the empty freeway as it crosses, snapping powerlines as it goes causing electrical arcs and sparks to fly with debris as they break and short circuit on the wet pavement.
According to Local affiliate Fox7, “Phan tells Storyful that she saw debris and what she thought was a fire and then she looked over and saw the tornado.
“It was much closer to me than the video is showing,” Phan said. “It was scary, and I thought about driving off the road to get away from it.”
According to Storyful, “Mary Phan recorded this video and originally posted it to Facebook. Phan told Storyful she was driving when she saw debris, and what she thought was a fire. She said she looked over then and saw the tornado.”
Earlier that morning, the National Weather Service at Fort Worth reported a massive line of storms as it passed through the Dallas-Fort Worth area hours before and warned of a possible “brief spin up tornado” that is consistent with what happened at Orange some 100 miles to the southwest.
The severe part of a line storms is remaining along and N of I-20 and will be impacting the DFW Metro up through the Red River Valley through 5 am. Damaging winds to 70 mph a brief spin up tornado are possible. Have your safety plan ready now. #dfwwx #txwx pic.twitter.com/TrRYBwKBvA
— NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) October 27, 2021
Subsequently, about five hours later NWS Houston issued a Tornado watch for an area ranging from Port Arthur all the way to Lafayette, Louisiana calling for 70 mile per hour gusts of wind, “likely tornados” and quarter-sized hail.
A tornado watch has been issued for parts of Louisiana and Texas until 4 PM CDT pic.twitter.com/HjQJVib5Iz
— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) October 27, 2021
This watch was followed by almost a dozen severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings from Houston to the Gulf coast over the next 3 to 4 hours as the line of storms struck the area around 8:21 AM. In the radar image shared by NWS Houston the large storm cell that spawned the twister is visible on the I10 near Beaumont as the loop begins.
10/27/2021 – 10:20 AM Radar Update:
A cold front is moving past the SE Texas area, bringing with it strong thunderstorms and lingering showers over the next couple hours. pic.twitter.com/0c19uipUAE— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) October 27, 2021
Just because it’s October in Texas doesn’t mean that Tornado season is really over, granted May thru June are normally the worst but, those storm sirens can always wail. Mary’s original video caption, notable for it’s brevity really does say it all: “#texasweather”.
