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Tornado touches down in Luling, ripping up a tree and damaging homes

“Normally we get the sirens around here, but there was no siren or anything. Before I could gather everyone in my house to go to the bathrooms it was over.”

LULING, La. — Barbara Templet counted tarps on Thursday -- and her blessings.

She was sitting at home, watching TV the night before, when the weather suddenly changed.

“I said, 'My God! What is this?' And I couldn't wait until it stopped so I could figure it out,” she said. “And when I walked out, I said, 'Now I know what it is.’

An EF-0 tornado raced through Mimosa Park in Luling Wednesday night, taking down fences and pulling up a tree by the roots.

Dennis Tuckson says his shed was lifted off its base and tossed into his neighbor's yard. He spent much of Thursday morning cleaning up debris the storm left behind. He says he barely had time to react it happened so fast.

“My wife's yelling, she's like, 'Oh, my God! That's a tornado!'” he said. “Normally we get the sirens around here, but there was no siren or anything. Before I could gather everyone in my house to go to the bathrooms it was over.”

Eric Zammit says he also had mere seconds to react.

“When things started breaking and popping and I heard all the noise, that's when we scrambled for the hall,” he said. “When I got in the hall, doors started to kind of slam around me a little bit, and then maybe 30, 40 seconds later it was over.”

He eventually went outside to find this giant pecan tree across the street, uprooted.

St. Charles Parish code enforcement checked on homes Thursday and found downed branches, collapsed fences and shingles ripped off of rooftops appeared among the worst of the damage.

Templet says she's glad it wasn't any worse and prays it doesn’t happen again.

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