An EF-3 Tornado Destroyed It In 2019, Today A Dallas Home Depot Store Reopened

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The Home Depot store on Forest Lane in Dallas reopened today, nearly a year after being ripped apart by a powerful tornado.

Customers at the North Dallas location were happy to have their neighborhood home improvement store back open for business.

Shopper Frank Jeffreys said, "It's good to see them back smiling again, because it was such a hard time for them. I know it was, because it was pretty devastating when it [tornado] came through."

"Nice to be back home," assistant store manager Jordan Jasper told CBS 11 News, be he admitted it took vision to get everything done. "We had a store that needed to be put back together and my mindset was 'let's figure out what we need to pick up and what we need to move out of the way so we can open up tomorrow at 6 a.m.'"

It was on October 20, 2019 when an EF-3 tornado swept through North Dallas, causing part of the store to collapse. On that one day there were 10 tornadoes -- in Dallas, Garland and Richardson -- that caused some $2 billion in damage to homes and businesses.

"The back of the building had the back wall blown out," Jasper recalled. "We had product from one side of the store on the other side of the store."

Thankfully no one was injured during the storm. In fact, associates had been released to go home before the tornado hit. With the store in ruins more than 100 employees kept their jobs, but were disbursed out among 17 other stores. Today they're back.

On Wednesday the store hosted a 'board cutting' -- as opposed to the traditional ribbon cutting -- to celebrate today's reopening.

Ultimately the store will have between 200 and 250 employees and associates, and if you're looking for a job they're still hiring.