GAINESVILLE, TX – A neighborhood had to be evacuated for seven hours Tuesday due to a bomb threat and police standoff. The suspect was apprehended without incident, but the toll it took on the neighborhood will last much longer.

People who live on County Road 134 said it’s a peaceful, friendly neighborhood, where everyone knows their neighbor.

"In this little neighborhood it's always been peaceful, my mom and dad actually lived and died in this house, and my son was raised down here in this house most of his life and played,” said Karen Hacker, who lives next door.

Karen and her husband Allin used to live in the house that is now destroyed, along with their shattered neighborhood.

"We were really worried, worried about everybody,” said Allin.

Tuesday afternoon around 2:00 p.m. the Hackers heard loud noises coming from next door. That's when they called police and found out their neighbor had made a bomb threat.

"He called the Love County Sheriff's department in Oklahoma and said that he has a bomb in his house and he was going to blow up his house, and if law enforcement showed up he was definitely going to blow it up,” said Cooke County Chief Deputy Jim Carter.

42-year-old Thomas Ray Mandrell Jr. held Cooke County Sheriff's, Gainesville police, and the Denton Bomb Squad in a seven hour standoff. Deputies evacuated everyone within a two mile radius of the house until about midnight that night.

During the standoff Mandrell tore his home apart, turning over furniture, breaking windows and destroying almost everything inside.

"You know us adults we can recuperate, we can do, but the kids you know it was just fear for them and something they shouldn't have to go through,” said Karen.

The Sheriff's Office said this isn't the first time they've had trouble in the neighborhood. Two weeks ago Mandrell was involved in another standoff threatening to shoot himself. Karen said everyone in the neighborhood has been scared ever since.

"They can't sleep at night, they listen for every little noise going up and down the road, you know every dog that barks at a coyote is he barking at your neighbor that's come to shoot you?" said Karen.

Mandrell remains in the Cooke County Jail charged a third degree felony of terroristic threat. His bond is set at $200,000, but both the sheriff's office and neighbors say they'll be fearful if he makes bond.

"It's very serious, and in this man's situation they tend to escalate if they continue with this type of behavior and this activity it escalates the more often they do it the more severe it gets and so we're very concerned about what he's going to do in the future as well,” said Carter.

The Hackers said the whole neighborhood has been on edge, and that it will take a long time to recover from the toll the incidents have taken on their small community.

“You may lay your body down to sleep, but your mind's going constantly and it's just always this up and down up and down… emotional roller coaster, so we're mentally tired,” she said.