National Weather Service confirms two tornadoes in Rusk County

RUSK COUNTY, Texas (KLTV) - The National Weather Service confirms two tornadoes touched down in Rusk County during storms Thursday.

The NWS confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down near Mount Enterprise. The tornado caused damage to the Whispering Pines RV Park in Rusk County.

The second tornado, which was east of Henderson, is at least an EF-2, according to NWS Meteorologist Brad Bryant. Bryant said the team was continuing to survey.

It came as no surprise to residents of an East Texas RV park today, that they were hit by what has been confirmed now as a tornado.

Clearing trees and assessing what they have lost was all returning RV park residents could do today.

While a National Weather Service survey team looked for signs of what hit the area.

“One of the first things we look for is trying to figure out the width of the tornado. Go through and try and find the maximum damage indicators,” said NWS meteorologist Brad Bryant.

Those indicators would not be the damaged homes.

“Unfortunately mobile units are not damage indicators. One of the reasons for that is they’re not really anchored into the ground,” said NWS meteorologist Brandon Thorn.

The trees give it away.

“Twisted trees like we see here, that’s an automatic indicator that we had about 100-105 mile per hour winds which is roughly about an EF-1 tornado. Immediately when we pull up, that’s one of the things we see,” Thorn says.

RVs and mobile homes were overturned, and some units were totally torn apart.

“Thankfully there were no significant injuries from this and no deaths so far. So we’re glad to hear that,” says Thorn.

In the end, surveyors knew what they we’re looking at.

“We’re relatively confident it was a tornado that came through here,” Bryant says.

The Red Cross has been assisting those affected at Whispering Pines.

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