Saturday, August 24, 1996

Dolly Spawns Small Tornado in South Texas

By PAULINE ARRILLAGA
Associated Press

OLMITO (AP) - Hurricane Dolly's destruction reached as far north as the Texas border Friday, spawning a small tornado that ripped off roofs and uprooted trees in two communities.

No one was injured as the twister made its way through Olmito into the affluent neighborhood of Rancho Viejo, about 10 miles north of Brownsville.

But the tornado, which touched down around 8 a.m., caused significant damage to homes and vehicles.

Johnny Cavazos spent the morning retrieving pieces of a plywood roof blown off a rental house he owns in Olmito. Chunks were tossed across the front yard into a canal several feet away.
"It's a total loss," Cavazos said. "I'll have to tear it down and start again."

Branches of an uprooted mesquite tree littered the yard, while across the street, a 100-foot chain-link fence laid twisted amid sodden grass.

Ramiro Atkinson Sr., who lives next door to Cavazos' home, said he saw the tornado touch down as he headed out to read a water meter.

"I stepped out of my garage and all of a sudden I saw this big, big dark cloud overhead and it started coming down," said Atkinson, whose property escaped damage. "I ran into my house and shut the doors."

A few miles north in Rancho Viejo, the twister caused damage to about 10 homes, hurled trees onto the golf course and knocked over street signs, police Chief Ignacio Mendoza said. Some patio walls, made of double-layered brick, were flung into swimming pools.

Mendoza estimated damage would be in the thousands of dollars.

Paula West was reading in bed when she heard her patio table shatter.

"First it went one way, then it went another way," she said. "I heard that noise, and it was here and gone."

Ms. West considers herself lucky. The tornado blew out her neighbor's garage windows and peeled back the Spanish-tiled roof. In another yard, a plastic chair hung precariously from a tree branch.
Don Keen, the golf pro at the Rancho Viejo Resort and Country Club, was headed out to work when the winds picked up and the sky darkened.

"All of a sudden, the whole house just started shaking. You could not hear," he said.

One tree fell onto his car, smashing the windows, while another skidded across the street, uprooted from a neighbor's yard. His children's swingset was upended and roof tiles dotted the yard.

Don Ocker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville, said tornadoes often are formed in the northeastern corridor of a hurricane.

"The spiral bands are like a pinwheel. When they get out away from the center, they hit terrain and surface friction tends to cause some commotion," he said.

Dolly made landfall Friday morning just south of the Mexican port of Tampico, 250 miles south of the Texas border. It struck as a minimal hurricane, with winds of 80 mph, but started to weaken as it traveled northwest into the mountains.

The tornado was the most severe effect Dolly had on Texas. In Corpus Christi, sheriff's deputies reported seeing several funnel clouds west of the city, but none touched down, said Maj. William Edge of the Nueces County Sheriff's Department.

No severe flooding was reported, although high tides along the coast from South Padre Island to Corpus Christi prompted park officials to close beach roads to vehicular traffic.

The storm brought more beneficial rain to the state, dumping several inches from the Rio Grande Valley north along the coast. Showers were expected to continue over the next few days as Dolly dissipates in northern Mexico, Ocker said.