Residents of Bastrop County describe storm's fury
BASTROP, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - The moment a small trailer, just east of Bastrop, was smashed, the man inside was trying to see if his truck was being damaged by hail. “You can't see through that door window, so I came and looked through this one and I was like, boom,” said Bo Kresge.
Before he knew it, Kresge and the trailer were both going for a ride “It was rocking back and forth, then iIwas like ugh, paused and the next thing I'm, wall. Ceiling. Floor. Wall. Ceiling floor,” said Kresge.
Trapped under his bed with debris stacked on top of it. Bo escaped by crawling out of a window.
“I’m glad I didn’t have my son, that is the only thing I was thinking about,” said Kresge.
Several friends arrived later and spent the morning trying to salvage what they could.
“This is life right here ... Yeah, I’m still living yeah, I’m a cockroach,” said Kresge.
Kresge made the comparison to that bug because of what he has gone through in the past. Several years ago, Kresge says he was in a car wreck and his skull was separated from his spin.
When he was being tossed by the storm, Kresge said he held he head and neck fearing a fatal injury.
The storm first hit an area near the Bastrop water treatment facility.
A large storage tank was knocked over. Trees were broken and power lines snapped near the Buc-ees at Hwy 71 and 95. Most of the damage to homes was along Harmon Road.
The trailer Bo Kresge was in belongs to a friend, Clayton Johnson, who had recently purchased it. Johnson said he didnt have insurance and has started a GoFundMe account to help pay it off.
Bo Kresge wasn’t the only resident who had a wild ride with the storm.
A metal roof that was next to the trailer came from a mobile home 50 years away. Becky Manor was inside the home when the storm hit. “I don’t think she knew her roof was gone until it started getting daylight,” said Manor’s friend Robert Choppa.
Manor was still in bed asleep, according to Choppa. “When she woke up, the whole roof had been flipped over and said it was raining on her. She got into a corner closet ... Yeah roof was already gone. She said she started feeling drops on her,” said Choppa.
Choppa and others who go to church with Becky Manor spent the day helping her pack up. Like her neighbor across the way, Bo Kresge says the storm took a lot but not their friends.
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