Rob Smat remembers the phone ringing at his parents’ home in Macon, Ga.
It was his grandmother, who said it wasn’t safe for the family to move to Fort Worth as there “would be nothing left.” About a week prior on March 28, 2000, a tornado ripped through downtown, killing two people and injuring dozens.
The F-2 tornado touched down along the West Seventh Street corridor, smashing brick factories and warehouses before hopping the Trinity River and battering downtown skyscrapers. A second tornado hit south Arlington neighborhoods about 30 minutes later, leveling six homes and damaging as many as 100 others…