A devastating storm rampaged through Trinity County Sunday night, leaving Conroe Police Lieutenant James "Jimmy" Waller critically injured and propelling his wife Adela into a nearby pasture. As reported by the Houston Chronicle, the respected 22-year department veteran and his wife were at their property when their home was struck by severe weather, the damage so extensive that the National Weather Service has been brought into question over a possible unconfirmed tornado.
Lieutenant Waller was pinned under the remains of his home while lightning illuminated the destruction, revealing his wife injured but alive on the ground, according to an interview with neighbor Brant Pee by KPRC 2's Corley Peel detailed in the Click2Houston, the couple was thankfully found and a 911 call by Pee secured prompt medical intervention, and even as the storm's aftermath settled, a poignant scene of prayer persisted amidst the scattered debris and despair, uniquely poignant, these moments of human connection scribe themselves into our collective memory though they wish them effaced by kinder times.
As the community reels from the events, the Conroe Police Officer's Association has launched a GoFundMe campaign to support the Waller family through the painstaking road to recovery, with multiple surgeries on the horizon for Waller. "His recovery will be lengthy and require multiple surgeries," the department said in a press release. The Click2Houston report illuminates a tale of aspirations abruptly halted, with the Wallers having only recently acquired the trailer home in hopes of a tranquil retreat to mend and rejuvenate.
While Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace has depicted a landscape of homes erased and lives tousled by nature in a Facebook video, he emphasized that despite the unprecedented scale of destruction in the area, survival was the prevailing narrative, even in his belief that a tornado, unconfirmed by meteorologists, had indeed descended upon their homes and lives, and while the roads lay inundated and power lines strewn askew, the force of the community rouses itself to aid the fallen among them, with well-wishes being collected at the police department located at 2300 Plantation Drive, where tangible tokens of compassion take shape as cards and messages for the couple.
