Jacksonville residents begin cleanup in wake of Sunday night storm

JACKSONVILLE, Texas (KLTV) - Parts of East Texas were left with downed trees, powerlines and limbs, while some people were without power. Sunday night’s strong storms left the city of Jacksonville with quite the mess.

Venessa Martinez said they were finishing birthday celebrations for her husband when the storms began.

“We were just getting wrapped up, cleaning the kitchen and everything, and we were just sitting at the table when we started hearing the wind. We opened the back door and started seeing all the thunder from afar. The rain started hitting, and we were like, ‘It’s starting to get really bad,’” Martinez said.

Not too much later, the family heard a loud crash.

“Suddenly, we heard a big tree fall, and we got up real quick to a safe spot,” Martinez said.

A few hours prior, the family truck was sitting right where the tree fell. On Monday, the Martinez family spent time trimming limbs on the many trees surrounding their house.

“We were going to try and see if we could take all of the branches out on top of the house, so it’s safer and we have no risk of any other branches falling on the house. We are also going to try to build a garage, so we can be safe also with the cars and everything,” Martinez said.

Martinez is from Jacksonville but had been living elsewhere. She moved back just last week after she and her husband lost everything in an EF-3 tornado in Perryton, Texas, in June.

“The trauma that I went through being actually in it, now every little storm and every thunder really hits me, all those memories that we went through,” Martinez said.

An employee with the city said they began the clean-up process across the town around midnight, going into much of Monday.

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