The storm that was responsible for the Saragosa tornado developed during the late afternoon north of Balmorhea and had very little motion for several hours, moving only slightly across southwestern Texas.
Twenty-two people were killed inside the Catholic Hall of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, where a graduation ceremony for pre-schoolers was taking place.
In addition to Catholic Hall, 118 homes, the post office, a grocery store, two churches and a school were also heavily damaged or destroyed.
Local storm spotter TV and radio stations based in Midland, Odessa and Pecos rebroadcast the warnings in Spanish and English, but many residents in the affected region (over 100 miles to the southwest) did not receive them.
The town was not equipped with a siren, did not have its own police or firefighters, and as many as 50% of residents did not own their own TV or radio; those who did generally preferred Spanish-language stations based in Mexico (which did not provide weather alerts).
17 with steel-reinforced masonry construction designed to survive an F4 tornado, and a storm shelter was also installed under one wing of the new community center.