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North Texas tornado survivors shed tears, call the experience “traumatic”
VALLEY VIEW — Support for tornado recovery has not been hard to find for Jeff Collinsworth. His family and loved ones have pitched in as he tackles the damage to his home of twenty years.
The tornado that killed seven hit and struck newly developed homes before continuing its path in the Collinsworth neighborhood on County Rd 2133.
“I looked to the West over here and I saw just a giant flash,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know, I can’t even explain it.”
Collinsworth said the windows in his home exploded, so he grabbed his dog, covered them with towels, and held the door. He said he just knew his life was over but hoped for a different outcome.
“And then you could just hear roaring. I mean, I can’t even explain the sound. It was deafening,” Collinsworth said.
The Valley View man said the storm moved his house from side to side. It became more frightening as the powerful winds started bumping him off the floor.
When the tornado passed, Collinsworth took a while to come out. He kept hearing screams, he said. It was his neighbor, but Collinsworth doesn’t speak English.
“And I heard him screaming. And I grabbed a flashlight, and I went over there, three people in the rubble over here,” Collinsworth said.
But he could see the need. Collinsworth said his neighbor had a broken arm. The man’s mother got trapped under debris. With help from others, she was freed. But the neighbor’s grandfather did not survive. Collinsworth said he had broken limbs, too. He said that emergency crews were slammed with calls and could not get there in time.
A body of water authorities call a pond behind Collinsworth’s house is where emergency crews found two dead children, a two and a five-year-old. Investigators said a tornado sucked the family out of their house.
“My wife says either you stay or you go,” Nicolas Navarez said. “I say… I go!”
Navarez has lived on the same street where the children were killed for 11 years. He said the family has moved in recently.
The 45-year-old father of four and husband said his family left and returned home safely. But the damage was significant.
Navarez sleeps inside his truck at night to protect their belongings. He said they lost food because of the power outage. While community members have brought food by, he’s looking for someone to help him cover up his home before forecasted rain moves in.
“And when you see it real, like in person,” Navarez said.
Navarez’s reflection on the impact brought him to tears.
“The unknown. Just the uncertainty. The power of what’s going on,” Collinsworth said. “The whole house shaking underneath you.”
Even with the help of neighbors and loved ones, the sounds of recovery can still be haunting.
“At night, hearing the guy screaming and hearing the tornado and the roar and all that, that’s the hardest thing,” Collinsworth said.
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Throughout Election Day and night, CBS News’ Confirmed team will be fact checking reports of threats around voting today, voter fraud, election hacking, and more as the nation votes and waits to see whether Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States., CBS News’ full coverage of the election is here.
False: Elon Musk claimed Google intentionally manipulating search results in favor of Harris
X owner Elon Musk posted, then deleted, a screen recording comparing the Google searches. The post reached over 2.5 million views before its removal, with other posts garnering thousands of views.
Details: Google said searches for “where to vote for Harris” yielded a polling location map because Harris is also the name of a county in Texas, not because of bias for the Democratic candidate.
Searching for “where to vote for Trump” returned news articles and standard search results, while “where to vote for Vance” produced a similar polling locations map because Vance is the name of a county in North Carolina.
Google adjusted its algorithm Tuesday to prevent candidate-related queries from returning polling maps. Google trends data show that searching “where to vote” is a much more common query than searching where to vote for either Trump or Harris.
By Julia Ingram and Layla Ferris
False: Social media posts claim Milwaukee mayor, a Democrat, said the city’s votes would not be counted on election night
On X, users claimed that the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee said at a news conference that Milwaukee would not be counting ballots tonight.
Details: Votes in Milwaukee will be tabulated tonight despite posts on the social media platform X that have pushed a false claim that Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said votes in the city won’t be counted on election night.
In reality, vote counting started Tuesday morning and will continue late into Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning at the city’s so-called “central count” location, according to Johnson’s communications director, Jeff Fleming.
“They’ve already started tabulating, and had tabulated thousands of ballots by this afternoon,” Fleming said. “The vote totals exceeded our original projections, so the workload at central count is higher than expected.”
Milwaukee’s votes can take longer to count for several reasons, Barry Burden, Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center, said.
“It’s the biggest city, and it has the most ballots, and it also counts absentee ballots at a central location,” Burden said. “That’ll be after midnight, 1 (a.m.) or 2 a.m.”
The city’s more than 200 election workers started counting votes at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, Fleming said. They’ll continue the tabulation overnight, and ballots will be delivered to county clerks either the next day or the day after, depending on local rules.
By Chris Hacker
Spreadsheet error corrected: GOP U.S. House candidate says Harris County, Texas, early vote results showed big drops and spikes in early voting
U.S. House candidate Caroline Kane, a Republican running in Texas’ 7th District, posted on X Monday that Harris County’s early vote results showed significant drops and spikes in the number of early voters for several voting locations between Sunday and Monday, which should not be possible.
Details: Election officials said a misaligned spreadsheet caused the publicly reported early vote totals in Harris County to appear incorrectly. Local officials have corrected the document posted online by Kane. They noted the spreadsheet was labeled “unofficial” and said the error would not impact the official vote tally.
In a statement, the Office of the Harris County Clerk said, “In the process of updating the daily record of early vote totals for two vote centers (Baytown Community Center and Mission Bend Center), the formatting of the spreadsheet inadvertently misaligned, causing cells to shift and reflect incorrect numbers for other locations. Our office is aware and is actively working to correct the report.”
“I assure you that every vote that was cast will be accurately tallied,” the statement from the clerk’s office concluded.
By Jui Sarwate
Software malfunction prevented some voters from scanning ballots in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Voting hours extended to 10 p.m. in the county.
Details: Local courts have extended voting hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Cambria County, Pennsylvania after local officials said a “software malfunction” prevented voters from scanning their ballots early Tuesday morning.
Voters are using paper ballots as technicians review the issue.
“All votes will be counted and we continue to encourage everyone to vote,” the county commissioner’s office said in a press release.
According to the county’s petition to extend voting hours, the malfunction “caused voter confusion, long lines of voters, and many individuals left the polling locations without casting a ballot.
“The Pennsylvania Department of State said it is in contact with Cambria County and is “committed to ensuring a free, fair, safe, and secure election.”
Cambria County, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, has a population of approximately 131,000. Trump won the county 68% to 31% in 2020, and he won by a similar margin in 2016.
By Steve Reilly, Julia Ingram, Layla Ferris
False: Non-citizens encouraged to vote in Philadelphia
Conservative commentator James O’Keefe claimed non-citizens are being encouraged to vote in Philadelphia.
Details: Philadelphia officials said allegations by commentator James O’Keefe that non-citizens are being encouraged to vote are incorrect. O’Keefe posted a new video on Monday claiming Election Clerk Milton Jamerson and Ceiba, a local non-profit, advised voting with an ITIN number, regardless of citizenship.
The video received 1.6 million views on X as of Tuesday, and was reposted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who said it was “the smoking gun of attempted election theft.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein said the report was incorrect and non-citizens are not eligible to vote in Philadelphia. ITINs are for tax purposes and not linked to voting eligibility. Ceiba called O’Keefe’s claims “unfounded and based on harmful stereotypes.”
By Joanne Stocker and Emmet Lyons
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