‘Never encountered something like this before’: Witness describes tornado as it moved through Navajo Nation

MONTEZUMA CREEK, Utah (ABC4) — Officials continue to assess the damage caused by a tornado that moved through San Juan County on Saturday afternoon, destroying three houses on Navajo Nation.

Terrell Benally was visiting his grandmother when he got a call from his sister, who was visting from Colorado, that a tornado was forming near town. Benalli went outside on his porch a few moments later to find the tornado forming himself.

“We’ve never had to encounter something like this before,” Benally said in an interview with ABC4. “We really didn’t have a plan for this, we weren’t prepared for something like this in the slightest.”

Benally adds that the tornado was definitely a sight to see but also scary at the same time.

“The closest thing to a tornado I’ve ever seen are dust devils,” Benally says.

Terrell adds that the tornado formed with the area of the four sacred mountains of Navajo culture, where natural disasters like tornadoes are not supposed to occur. These four mountains include Mount Blanca (Sisnaajini in Navajo), Mount Taylor (Tsoodzil in Navajo), the San Francisco Peaks (Dook’o’oosliid in Navajo) and Mount Hesperus (Dibe Nitsaa in Navajo).

Benally says it was a wake up call when he finally saw the tornado.

“I said to myself to get to packing, to stop filming this TikTok and get serious,” Benally adds.

The National Weather Service in Grand Junction will be sending a team to survey the damage from the tornado. No injuries were reported.