DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – At the end of Martha Lane, a street now marked by damage from Sunday night’s tornado, sits the home James and Sherri Wiggins spent six months renovating.

They moved in this weekend. James Wiggins said, “We were moving some stuff in when we heard the tornado sirens.”

The homeowner admits he hesitated. “And then, it was kind of spooky. My wife said, ‘That sounds like a train.'”

Above them, the roof began to pull away.

James tried to pull their dog into the bathroom after them, but he realized it was too late.

“There’s no way that I could close the door,” he said. “At that point, I had to think about my wife and turn around and lay on top of her.”

It’s a difficult moment for him to talk about. “That’s one of those moments in life, when you just say… you say your prayers,” he said.

The scene he would later discover outside looked to him like a war zone. “You walk out, people are bloodied, people are bruised, kind of dazed.”

The neighborhood Monday began the job of cleaning up with help from volunteers who just showed up to help. “There’s love and there’s caring in Dallas, Texas,” James said.

Never again will he take a tornado warning lightly. “We often dismiss the sirens,” he said. “A lesson from this is — don’t underestimate the power of Mother Nature.”

The Wiggins family found their dog under some of the rubble. She was injured, but is expected to be okay.