TYLER, Texas — East Texas has fought through multiple days of heavy rain and wind that has caused trees to topple over on homes causing plenty of damage.
In the last week, the National Weather Service have measured more that nine inches of rain in Smith County.
"I’m kind of in a daze about that, I can’t believe it really happened," homeowner Janan Hale said.
A tree fell onto Hale's roof, causing extensive damage both inside and outside her home. And that’s what many homeowners across the area are experiencing after wind gusts measured at 70 plus mph barreled through East Texas Monday evening.
"I’ve never seen anything like this and I’ve lived here 55 years at least. We built this house," Hale said.
This isn’t her first time having a tree on her home but it’s by far the worst. But thankfully, things are starting to look brighter, according to Texas A&M Forest Service district forester Chris Kirby.
"This week of dry weather we’re having, as long as the humidity it’s not at 100% and we’re not having a really high cloud cover, then it should relatively quick within a week or two," Kirby said.
That means those planning to take a walk outside don’t need to be afraid, but they should just be cautious of their surroundings.
"As long as the wind is down, it’s probably pretty safe, unless you’re seeing a tree that's leaning of course stay away from that. I know the city does a pretty good job of helping keep those areas safe," Kirby said.
And right now, the city of Tyler is working diligently to clean up; however, they have a list of priorities to get through.
"Unfortunately, at this time we are not able to clean up our parks. Our parks staff right now is prioritizing helping our street department clear our roadways. That's going to be our priority until all of our streets and our roadways are clear and people can access the roadways safely," City of Tyler Director of Parks and Recreation Leanne Robinette said.
While Robinette said that it hopefully won’t be long before they can move on to clean up the parks, they are asking for patience while they keep safety the priority.
"We are asking that people avoid our parks because there’s a lot of debris around. And we haven’t assessed 100% and so there may be some things in the park that we might not even be aware of," Robinette said.
The good news is East Texas will have a stretch of mostly dry days that we can work on clean up, but remember the most important thing during this time is safety.