2 women survive driving through deadly North Texas storms
VALLEY VIEW — In the past 24 hours, many pictures and videos have been sent to CBS News Texas on social media of the storms Saturday night. One of those viral videos showed the moment two women found themselves in or very near one of those tornados.
Valenia Gill and her best friend, Brenda Dance, filmed the moment they found themselves in or near a tornado near the Valley View area. They were driving back from a concert and thought they were driving away from the storm, but were instead driving right through it. So, the pair started filming on their cell phones, hoping, and praying they would make it out alive.
"I thought 'If I die,' then I want people to know how I die," says Dance, "So, I continued to record, and we kept her heads ducked between my knees, holding onto the door. It was the longest four minutes of my life."
"I had one hand on my cell phone and one hand on the steering wheel and I forgot to put the car in park!" Gill recalled.
Thankfully both friends drove away without any injuries, but the women say they are still shaken up from the experience.
Miraculously, the car they were in only got a little bit of damage.
"I feel for everyone else who had injuries, and who don't have homes or clothes," Gill says,
The pair also says they have been best friends for three years now, and admit the whole experience brought them even closer friends.
"We had angels with us. There's a purpose and we are here for a reason," Dance adds. "We are close, but we are really really close now. We almost died together. We lived through a tornado!" Brenda adds.
The storm that produced the tornado in Valley View injured at least 100 people and killed at least 7 people, according to Cooke County officials.
Cooke County is now under a disaster declaration by Governor Greg Abbott.