'Scariest moment of my life': Granger family loses everything in tornado

TAYLOR, Texas (KXAN) — Hundreds of Williamson County residents are still in recovery mode one week after tornadoes ripped through Central Texas.

On Tuesday, a multi-agency resource center opened at the Taylor Expo Center to provide short-term and long-term relief for tornado survivors in Bastrop and Williamson County.

The resource center is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday.

"Even though it's been over a week since the storm came, they still need assistance for multiple things," said Shantelle Brannon, deputy director for the Williamson County Office of Emergency Management.

In the unincorporated parts of Williamson County, the tornado caused damage to roughly 458 homes.

"Of those 458 homes, destroyed and major, it's around the 150 mark. If you want to add another layer to that to include the city of Round Rock, then that's going to be well over 1,200 homes that were effected," said Brannon.

Granger resident Rick Hertless is part of one of those families whose home was completely destroyed.

"The tornado picked up my mom three feet, then picked up the house to meet my mom, then moved us about three feet," said Hertless. "The house is gone. There's no house. The room we were inside, that's it."

Hertless' grandchildren were staying inside another home that sat about 50 feet away.

"None of us got a scratch, all of my grandkids. I'm just giving praise to the Lord we survived," said Hertless.

Hertless' grandson DJ, who was staying in the house behind him, captured video before and after the tornado hit. In the video you can see the roof of the home come off and debris flying into the small room he and his siblings were in at the time. Minus that one room, the rest of the house is history.

"Me and my brother, we called out to my niece and sister. They didn't answer twice. That's when I thought, 'I just lost my twin sister and my niece.' They finally answered. That was probably the scariest moment of my life."

'One of the toughest days in my dispatch history'

The tornado hit right around shift change for Williamson County dispatchers Laura Gattarello and Amanda Giltz, but that didn't stop them from performing life-saving response efforts.

"Our shift change happens around 6 p.m. This all happened 10 minutes before. Thankfully, we had both dayside and nightside shifters at the time," said Gattarello. "We started getting calls in Round Rock, and then it consistently got busy."

Gattarello and Giltz ended up working a double shift the day the tornado hit to make sure all bases were covered.

"I'd say we have one of the best teams I've ever worked with in all of the career fields I've been in," said Giltz. "Everybody just stayed without being asked and jumped right in."

"This was probably one of the toughest days in my dispatch history," said Gattarello.

The Williamson County Office of Emergency Management plans to study the tornado damage in the county in its threat assessments and figure out how to prepare for any potential future disasters.

"This is my 17th year in emergency services, and things are quickly changing. Who would have thought this would happen in Round Rock, Jarrell and Granger. We're going to do more studies as to the climate change and everything that affects tornadoes coming into the area. We will start to develop different plans and different operating procedures," said Brannon.