JACKSBORO, Texas — More than a dozen stray animals survived the EF-3 tornado that hit the shelter they were staying in this week, thanks in part to a local animal control officer who never left their side.

On Wednesday, as crews across town continued working to restore power to the massive area of Jacksboro damaged in Monday’s tornado, Michael Booher returned to the now-wrecked animal shelter where he weathered the storm that afternoon.

“This is the animal shelter we had,” said Booher as he ducked under twisted metal and tip-toed through debris to pick up some of his supplies from inside.

As that tornado touched down just outside of town Monday, Booher, the animal control officer for the City of Jacksboro, said he was parked at the front of the dirt road entrance to the shelter just off of U.S. Highway 380. He said he was doing his job as a local emergency worker, spotting for storms and trying to give as much advance warning of what was coming toward the town as possible. 

He said the chatter over his radio was that the storm was shifting as it moved through Jack County, and as he looked through the windshield of his pickup truck, he quickly confirmed that Jacksboro seemed to be in the path.

“It was so rain wrapped. All I could see was just a wall of water,” said Booher.

The wind quickly picked up with that wall of rain pressing toward him, and Booher said before he knew it, the telltale signs of a tornado were baring down on him and his shelter.

“When the rock hit the windshield, I just ducked,” said Booher.

Chaos surrounded Booher for mere moments, but he said just as quickly as the storm was on him, it had passed and he looked up to realize the winds had moved his entire truck across the dirt lot. 

Booher said once he had his bearings, he looked up to see that the animal shelter had been wrecked by the storm, and his thoughts quickly went to the 11 dogs and four puppies that were inside.

“That’s when I got out to see how the dogs and everything were,” said Booher.

Despite the roof being essentially torn off the small building, cages and debris being whipped all around it, Booher said he quickly found a bit of relief as two of the dogs staying in the shelter had escaped their cages and were waiting eagerly at the front gate for him to get them away from the chaos.

The long-time officer worked his way through the mess and into the building, noticing along the way that the shelter’s trailer had also been moved by the winds into the fence surrounding the shelter, and the kennels that usually sat in a row outside were now piled in the back. However, when he did finally make it inside, he found another relieving sight.

“Most of them were still in their pens,” said Booher, who found all 15 dogs alive and well. “They were like, get me out of this.”

That’s exactly what Booher did. He said the nearby Springtown Animal Shelter gladly took in the animals that needed a new place to stay, and directors even got four of the dogs adopted out already as of Wednesday. The four puppies went directly to adopters as well, just a bit sooner than planned.

Booher said a volunteer also found a blind stray cat in the wreckage of the shelter on Tuesday and got it to safety, naming it Nado after the storm it had just survived.

While this is good news for all of the animals and their human protector out of that bad storm, the news for the actual shelter building isn’t quite as great.

Booher said the building was likely to be a loss, though he hoped some parts of the property could be salvaged to eventually house an animal quarantine facility for the city. Luckily, he said city leaders have been looking for some time to build an entirely new shelter just up the road from the current one, and he said the land has even been purchased. The storm might just speed those plans up.

“You go through a lot and this was one that I don’t wanna go through, probably, again,” said Booher with a laugh.

However, he is just glad that his animals and his community made it out of the massive storm without any casualties. Booher said they’ll find their new path forward at the little shelter he loves.