Localized flooding occurred across much of Texas and the Southern Plains on Wednesday as residents began cleaning up after the deadly storm that killed a million young people and left more than a million homes and businesses without power.
After the storm warnings were issued, the National Weather Service issued an advisory Wednesday saying more severe weather was moving in from the west, with multiple thunderstorms expected Thursday and Friday. The weather service also issued severe thunderstorm warnings Wednesday for parts of Colorado, North Dakota, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico and Florida, urging people to prepare for golf-ball-sized hail and severe wind gusts up to 70 mph in some areas.
More than 380,000 power customers in Texas were still without power Wednesday night, and 70,000 customers also remained without power in Kentucky, Arkansas, Virginia and Missouri, according to USA Today’s outage tracker.
Oncor Electric said some Dallas-area customers may not have power restored until Friday.
“We recognize the difficulty and inconvenience our customers experience after a severe storm like this, and we remain focused on restoring power as quickly and safely as possible,” the company said in a statement.
Some areas around Dallas were hit with nearly 2 inches of rain in less than four hours on Tuesday, AccuWeather reported. Dallas has seen 2.35 inches of rain in all of May 2023.
The severe storms have also affected traffic at major airports. At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, strong winds caused an American Airlines plane to veer off its gate and overturn, and the FAA ordered groundings at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Wednesday due to thunderstorms.
Dallas-area EMS workers shocked by severe storm damage
Cecelia Wichmann knew the storm was coming to the Dallas area on Tuesday, but she didn’t expect its strength or the extent of the damage.
The 44-year-old emergency medical worker left his home around 6 a.m. and quickly arrived at headquarters in Forney, a small town east of Dallas. Standing outside the building with several colleagues, he felt the temperature drop and the wind pick up.
“That’s when I knew things were going to get worse,” she said. “The rain and wind just came out of nowhere.”
Throughout the day, she witnessed more than a dozen 18-wheeler trucks overturned, at least 100 to 150 homes destroyed by falling trees and high winds, and a 16-year-old construction worker killed when a building under construction collapsed near Houston.
Hiding in a closet in Central Texas
Kenneth Radley spent hours watching the local news early Tuesday, waiting to see if a powerful storm predicted for Central Texas would reach his home in Kaufman County, just outside Dallas. And it did, unleashing heavy rain, hail and strong winds within seconds.
Radley ran into a small closet in his living room, his first time sheltering from the storm. The 79-year-old emerged to find dozens of trees uprooted and the siding of his home ripped apart by hail. Winds blew open the garage door outside his home, burying his truck and golf cart under piles of rubble.
“It took us all day to dig the truck out,” Radley said, adding that the windshield was broken and the doors and hood were dented, but the truck was otherwise driveable.
Kentucky: Same House, Different Tornado
As powerful storms spread far beyond Texas, Mark Minton of Hopkins County, Kentucky, spent the past few days wondering what the odds were for a tornado to strike the same house twice.
More than 20 homes were destroyed in 2021 by an EF-4 tornado that devastated downtown Dawson Springs before blasting toward Minton’s home in Barnsley, a small unincorporated community. On Sunday, an EF-3 tornado followed nearly the same path, this time touching down a mile north of Dawson Springs and blowing east toward Charleston and northeast toward Barnsley.
Minton’s house was raided again.
“Statistically speaking, it’s like throwing a dart at a dart board and hitting the same hole twice,” Minton said. “We’re trying to determine if it’s safe to build, and when you hit it twice in a row, it makes it harder to make that decision again.”
− Stephanie Kuzhdimu, Louisville Courier Journal
In Houston, “people are scared.”
Wind gusts of more than 70 mph were recorded in Dallas and Houston, and Dallas County officials issued a disaster declaration on Tuesday, warning that “many” residents would be without power for days.
The latest storm hit the state just days after Memorial Day weekend, when terrifying weather swept through the region, leaving nearly 20 people dead. At least seven deaths have been reported in Texas, where the tragedy began two weeks ago when high winds and flooding ravaged the Houston area, killing at least eight people and leaving parts of the region without power for more than a week.
“Once again, many people are without power,” County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, which includes Houston, said in a social media post. “We just got through the derecho a few weeks ago, but this one was so devastating and many are still trying to recover, so I understand people are scared.”
In Forney, “people were caught off guard.”
In Forney, Wickman and his colleagues went inside the building and took refuge in a command center while 911 dispatchers took call after call. The power went out, bright lightning lit up the sky, and rain and hail pounded against the windows. A bang cut through the thunder and sent emergency workers searching for its source: a crushed bay door.
About an hour later, Wichmann and his partner were on the scene assessing the damage and responding to emergency calls. The roof had fallen off a building across the street. The road was covered in piles of crumpled rubble and tree branches. Their car was submerged in floodwaters.
In between calls, she tuned in to a live feed from her home to check in on her two dogs, Twix the Dalmatian and Ba-Ba-Ba-N, a Great Dane.
“Thankfully, my house wasn’t damaged and my family was safe,” she said. “This is definitely one of the worst storms we’ve seen in years. It definitely caught people off guard.”
Storm disrupts Dallas
Power was lost in the Dallas area and election officials extended voting hours for the state’s runoff elections. Northeast of Dallas, the Royse City First United Methodist Church was destroyed in a fire that firefighters tentatively determined was caused by lightning strikes from the storm.
Amanda Mirsky’s Range Rover was crushed in the driveway of her daughter’s Dallas home and buried under a large tree that had been uprooted by strong winds.
“It was incredibly windy,” Murski told Fox4news.com. “It’s just a ride. We’re OK.”
More counties added to Texas disaster list
Federal Emergency Management officials approved Gov. Greg Abbott’s request to add Collin, Cook, Denton and Montague counties to the list of more than a dozen Texas counties already approved for disaster declarations, which allow FEMA to provide funding for temporary housing, emergency home repairs, property losses, disaster legal services, and medical and funeral expenses caused by the disaster.
Why is storm season so busy?
At least 850 confirmed tornadoes have been reported so far, including several major ones, making 2024 one of the most tornado-prone years on record. Even veteran storm chasers have been surprised by the tornado activity so far this year. The U.S. has already had four days with more than 30 tornadoes of EF-1 or higher, according to Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storm Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. The average is two per year.
Meteorologists interviewed by USA TODAY blamed an active jet stream and a series of powerful storms moving from the West Coast across the central U.S. “We’ve seen a lot of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes” in recent weeks, said Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. Learn more.
− Elizabeth Wise, Dinah Boyles Pulver, Doyle Rice
