Tornadoes spawn in the aftermath of Harvey

A tornado possibly touched down about four times in the Houston suburb of Cypress Saturday as Tropical Storm Harvey pounded Texas.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office posted a video on Facebook of Sheriff Ed Gonzalez speaking to residents and news media about the tornado. Gonzalez said a car was flipped over by the tornado but the driver was okay.

Gonzalez said he and deputies saw extensive damage to roofs but had not heard of any injuries.

Cypress resident Marilyn Shaughnessy didn't expect the worst of Harvey to hit the Houston area until Sunday. But she opened a window Saturday afternoon to see a tornado bearing down on her house.

Shaughnessy, a retired police officer, said she and her family ran to their laundry room to wait out the tornado. Their house shook and framed pictures fell off the walls.

After it passed she went outside to find small holes in her roof and wooden planks from her fence missing. Nearby, contractors tore the remains of a chimney off one home and sized up the broken windows of another.

Francine Folmer said she and her family were watching TV when an alert about the tornado came on. She didn't think much of it until her husband went outside and saw it coming. Everyone then hid in a downstairs closet.

"It was moving like it was coming right at us. And when I saw that coming I turned around and I ran back into the house. I ran back into the closet and told my wife, 'It's coming. I can see it. It's coming right at us,'" her husband Del Folmer said.

"I didn't hear like a train or anything, just the roof and everything felt like it was shaking and then it got quiet," Francine said.

The Folmers now have some damage and some cleaning up to do but they weren't hurt.

"We're all okay. That's the main thing," Francine said.

The National Weather Service said the weather is still too bad for crews to go out and survey the damage in the Houston area. However, it estimates Harvey caused about 12 tornadoes on Saturday.

NWS meteorologist Wendy Wong said numerous tornadoes caused damage in Houston and the surrounding area -- from around Matagorda on the coast to the Cypress area in the north. She said homes, vehicles and buildings were damaged.

More than a dozen Texas counties were under a tornado watch Saturday night.

Harvey came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane Friday night but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.