Recovery efforts continue in Canton

Recovery efforts continued Monday around the town of Canton. Four tornadoes swept through Van Zandt county Saturday afternoon.Two of the four victims killed this past weekend during a tornado outbreak were identified. Both were in vehicles when the storms hit. James Clayton Young, 39, of Alba was traveling on Highway 64 and Lucreria Evette Sykes, 49, of Fort Worth was on I-20.

Work crews Monday morning cleared debris from a county road near the spot where twin EF3 tornadoes first touched down Saturday near the town of Eustace.

Fox 7's Chelsea Andrews analyzed the initial path of destruction which include a bent radio tower.

"These are some large trees that we are seeing basically snapped in half with this tornado and if it was into the weaker stages it just grew from here, then the damage we'll likely see as we get closer to Canton and places like that near Fruitvale is likely going to be a lot worse," said Andrews.

In Canton the search for two unaccounted for residents ended with both being found alive. The death toll remained at four with about 50 injuries. Local officials say the job now involves finding temporary shelters for those who lost homes

"Of course we're gonna need monetary donations because these people are going to need clothing, they're going to need household set up and again we do not want to take any kind of donations like furniture or clothing at this time that's way beyond our ability to store it and it would just go to waste,"said Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everette.

Just north of Canton the small community of Fruitvale took a direct hit by the larger EF3 storm. It's estimated the damage here caused by Windsor exceeded 130 mph.

"You don't even know where to start, you don't know what to clean up, you don't know what to pick up," said Nate Cantrell.

Cantrell drove from his home in Frisco to help salvage what's left of his friends home. He said they survived by crawling under a mattress.

"The second they got under the mattress they said everything got dark and it was chaos and literally they were just spinning around on the concrete floor and then it just stopped," said Cantrell.

Another frightening survivor story happened at the Rustic Barn events center. A high school prom was scheduled to take place there Saturday night. The owner Reagan Sumner Told FOX 7 a dozen early arrivals had to be rushed into bathrooms and closets as the storm hit.

"It was so loud when everything started coming down I could see their face they were screaming but I couldn't hear a thing they were saying I couldn't hear the screams," said Sumner.

The only thing left standing at the barn was a statue of an angel. It was an example the freakish nature of this kind of wind storm - that leaves behind so much destruction and so much Heartache.