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Orangefield family home among the 100 homes destroyed, impacted by tornado in Orange County

Orangefield Resident Roxanne Holt has lived in the area for eight years. The home she lived in with her husband and four children was destroyed by Tuesday's tornado.

ORANGE, Texas — Many Southeast Texans will spend another night without power after Tuesday's tornado severely impacted the area.

Orangefield Resident Roxanne Holt has lived in the area for eight years.

The home she lived in with her husband and four children was destroyed by Tuesday's tornado.

"I looked outside and sure enough that's when the tin from the shop across the way started pulling apart and I said let's go let's get to the hallway," Holt said. 

In most cases during a tornado warning, Holt says her family knows to take cover in a windowless room, like a bathroom or closet.  

Now, she's grateful her family chose to find shelter in a hallway. 

"The adrenaline that you have going on just trying to make sure everybody is safe and sound and in a spot where they're not going to get hurt kind of cancels all that out," Holt said. 

One of the many rooms in her house that saw the worst damage was the bathroom. 

"There is a nice big piece of two by four and it came in through the side of the house into our bathroom and it's stuck in the wall," Holt said. 

National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down in Orange County Tuesday. Meteorologist Doug Cramer tells 12News it could've possibly been more than one tornado, but that number could grow as his team assesses the wind speed and magnitude of the storm. 

Cramer won't know the scale of the tornado or miles per hour until he returns to the area Thursday morning.

"There's a chance that the tornado that we surveyed in Calcasieu Parish is going to be a continuation of the Orange County, Texas tornado," Cramer said. 

Cramer has spent more than 20 years assessing damage left behind by tornadoes. 

While he says the damage seen in Orange could have been much worse, what his team learns in the area will prepare experts for future natural disasters so they can warn the community faster. 

"This is really important to understand where the tornados are located and how strong the tornadoes are because what we do is we correlate that with what were seeing on the radar," Cramer said. 

Orange County Emergency Management Coordinator Joel Ardoin confirms about 100 homes in Orange County were impacted and/or damaged.  

He says it'll take days to get a full picture of the destruction. 

"From impacted to destroyed homes there's different levels of that, but there's about a 100 homes, but we're going to go back out to finish up that assessment tomorrow," Ardoin said. 

Ardoin says luckily there were no deaths and only two injuries. One person had some cuts and another a head injury

Cramer will begin his assessment first thing Thursday morning. 

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