Mother says a tree crushed her home and killed her son during powerful storms

PITTSBURG, Texas (KLTV/Gray News) - A mother in Texas is mourning the death of her son after he was killed in a storm that swept through the area Sunday night.

Carol Ford said she and her son, Kevin Ford, were alerted to the coming storm by their phones at 11:30 that night.

“It was packing 80-mile-an-hour winds. And I went to Kevin, and I said, ‘Kevin, my God, where are we going to go? What are we going to do?’ He said, ‘Mama, calm down. Don’t have a heart attack over it,’” she said.

The two then tried to wait out the storm. Ford said she got into the home’s pantry.

Then the lights went out.

“So, Kevin and I both got a flashlight, and I got into the pantry, and kind of shut the door. And there’s a big icebox right there that kind of protected me,” Ford said.

Ford said her son then went to the back door when it all went sideways.

“It was like dynamite going off,” Ford said. “When this thing hit, stuff just started falling on my head and I didn’t know if it was canned goods from the pantry or, there was a big piece of 2x4, you know, that popped me on top of the head and I had a pretty good knot,” Ford said.

A tree had fallen on the home and on Kevin’s truck, which was parked behind the house.

Ford said she called out to her son.

“‘Kevin, Kevin, are you all right?’ I said, ‘Kevin, answer me? Are you OK?’ I said, ‘Where are you at?’ Never heard from him,” Ford said.

She called 911, and first responders helped her escape through a window.

“And they kept saying, ‘Well, we need to take you to the hospital and see if you’re OK.’ I said, ‘No, I want to wait and see, I want Kevin found,’” Ford said.

At the scene, first responders didn’t tell her Kevin was dead. They had called Ford’s other son in Tennessee and asked him to tell his mother the bad news while she was in the ambulance.

“And I said, ‘They can’t find Kevin.’ He said, ‘Mama, they found Kevin, that he didn’t make it.’ Well, I just went ballistic in that ambulance. I was just screaming and crying,” Ford said.

After his father died, Kevin Ford had lived with his mother for about 15 years. Carol Ford had also helped him raise her granddaughter.

“And all these people are people who have worked with him or gone to school with him. He graduated from Gilmer [High School]. So, it’s been overwhelming today,” Ford said.

Ford was treated and released from the hospital.

She said she will be renting a place to live in the meantime, and friends of Kevin will help her move things out of the mobile home.

Ford also said her home was not insured.

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