BEAUMONT, Texas — A Beaumont museum dedicated to the role Southeast Texas played in the start of the petroleum era will be shut down temporarily after storms passing through on Sunday damaged the facility.
Several buildings at the Spindletop Gladys City Boomtown Museum on the Lamar University campus were damaged Sunday when a line of thunderstorms passed through.
Museum director Rayanna Hoeft was doing some work at the museum Sunday evening and told 12News on Monday that the storm passed through between 6 and 6:30 p.m.
"All of a sudden this storm rolled in and rain swirled in every direction, wind picked up," Hoeft explained, "I was trapped in an exhibit building and took cover under an early 20th century developer for film."
The museum didn't lose power immediately after the storm but by Monday morning the facility had no power as Hoeft worked to clean up.
Nearly 2,000 residents and customers in Jefferson County lost power due to the storm and by Monday morning more than 700 were still without power. Much of the remaining outages Monday morning were near the Lamar campus.
"The top of our visitor center was pulled back almost like a sardine can so we've got some roof damage there," she said.
Unfortunately an irreplaceable piece of history was lost.
"We lost an early 20th century oil tank that was actually at Spindletop Hill," Hoeft said. "That's irreplaceable, sadly."
Spindletop Gladys City Boomtown Museum weather damage
Several of the buildings were damaged and debris was strewn about the grounds of the museum which is made up of wooden buildings that portray Gladys City as it was around the time of the Spindletop oil well gusher in 1901.
The storm also left several broken windows.
"The roof of our saloon building was completely destroyed,"Hoeft told 12News.
The museum's collection storage is stored on the second floor of the saloon building and now staff at the museum are working to move objects and artifacts.
The museum is now temporarily closed while the clean up continues.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.