BISHOP, Texas — Bishop residents are cleaning up after a powerful storm swept through the area Thursday night, toppling trees, damaging fences, and knocking out power in parts of the community.
Manuel Vasquez, who has lived in his Bishop home for almost 20 years, spent Friday morning picking up pieces of his wooden fence that had broken off due to the strong winds. Multiple trees on his property broke during the storm, with branches barely missing his roof.
"Only about 40 feet to my house, I'm lucky. No damage to the house or anything. It was quick, it didn't take 20 hours or five hours or nothing just one pass and that's it," Vasquez said.
Mario Garcia woke up to a loud crash in the middle of the night. When he checked his backyard Friday morning, he discovered his mesquite tree had fallen, with parts landing in his neighbor's yard and knocking over some wires.
"I heard we had high wind gusts and obviously knocking over a mesquite with a trunk about that big it had to have been something big to take it down. We're glad we got through it, everything is fine. Now is clean up time," Garcia said.
Christian Garcia, a freshman at Bishop High School, reported seeing the school's new scoreboard face-down on the ground Thursday afternoon. Christian and his father were checking on neighbors and offering help after discovering a tree had fallen in their own backyard.
The pair also noticed damage to the roof of a building next to the Bishop Police Department, with a chunk of the roof on the ground alongside the building. They moved a heavy metal donation box that had been displaced by the winds.
"We thought it was a tornado or something because it was really windy. This metal donation box was in the middle and it used to be in the corner so we moved it all the way over there. It was really heavy. We're just going to drive around the west side to see if any trees fell on houses or anything," Christian said.
Debris was scattered throughout Bishop, with branches and other materials found in front of Bishop Elementary, across roads, and in residents' yards. Some areas experienced standing flood water, and AEP crews from Kingsville were working to restore power outages.
City Councilman Tony Mechell said the city is already working with the county on cleanup efforts.
"What you see right here is what you see all over town. There's just tons of trees and branches all over properties. Thank goodness nothing crazy happened and nobody was injured, not to my knowledge. We just really want to get our town back and cleaned up. I'm glad everyone is safe," Mechell said.
Republic Services of Corpus Christi and Nueces County will assist the city with debris pickup.
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