Sunlight reveals devastating tornado damage in Arabi. It was a rainy and windy night in Arabi Tuesday but nothing out of the ordinary, at least until sometime between 7:30 and 8 p.m. when a tornado that was traveling on the other side of the Mississippi River, crossed the water, gained strength and laid waste to several blocks in the area. Miraculously reports of serious injuries seemed to be minimal but there was a report of a death. Several viewers got video of a very wide and terrifying storm, the kind you are used to seeing on news reports in areas like “tornado alley” in the Midwest. “I couldn’t explain the noise it was making,” said Lloyd Breaux, who said he opened up his front door in Arabi to a scene out of a movie. “You see stuff like this on TV,” he exclaimed. “It sounded like my whole house was coming apart.” In areas near Rose Street, Karl Street and Friscoville, the storm took off rooftops, turned some homes into kindling and even overturned a few cars. “This was massive,” said Breaux. “I don’t want to live through this again. It’s crazy what these things can do.” Arabi resident Sandra Gauthier’s daughter felt the tornado first, as vibrations in her ear. Then she heard the freight train sound and she screamed at her mother to get in the bathroom. Their house was unharmed, but Gauthier told The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate that her thoughts immediately raced to her sister, who lives around the corner on Royal Street. James Norwalt, 66, walked out of his house on Friscoville and looked out at the heavy damage around him. Then he turned to his neighbor's house. "Whoa, they ain't got no roof at all. That thing must have dropped right down on us!" Norwalt said. While it may take a bit for the extent of problems to sink in, several things were clear in Arabi, the storm did plenty of damage, some people will need a lot of help to rebuild and there were thanks being given that more people didn’t suffer personal injury or worse.