Severe storms strike North Texas, leaving hundreds of thousands without power

Sakshi Venkatraman, Executive News Editor

The Dallas-Fort Worth area was hit with a bout of severe storms last night and in the early hours of this morning.

Texas Academy of Math and Science junior Esha Aggarwal captures her neighbor’s trampoline after it flew into her backyard due to the strong winds of last night’s storm. Aggarwal’s Flower Mound home was one of the many that saw the effects of the high wind speeds and hail that rocked North Texas. Photo courtesy Esha Aggarwal.

 

Although Coppell escaped the most intense parts of the storm, hail, lightning and strong winds caused fallen trees, home damage, and power outages in surrounding areas including Kaufman County, the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Rockwall, The Colony, Denton County and the neighborhoods near the TCU campus in Fort Worth.

 

In Dallas and Tarrant County alone, Oncor reported around 250,000 people reported losing power as of 4:15 a.m. this morning.

 

Coppell High School English teacher Samantha Neal, a resident of Highland Village, reports seeing “hail the size of her fist”. Coppell resident and Spanish teacher Christie Nelson says that she slept in her bathroom with her two dogs.

 

IB coordinator and Theory of Knowledge teacher Michael Brock, a Grapevine resident, was woken up in the middle of the night by his daughter who received a tornado warning on her phone. His security alarm also sounded after his house’s power was affected by the storm.

 

Last night’s storm follows hailstorms that struck North Texas earlier in the week, where residents of surrounding areas reported large hail.

 

“I had several large, baseball-sized hail shots to my car, which cracked the windshield,”  STEM teacher and Highland Village resident Grant Garner said. “It is still to be determined how much damage was done to the roof and siding of our house. We had a couple of people in our neighborhood where the hail stones were big enough that it actually put holes in their roof. It sounded like artillery shells hitting the house, it was brutal.”

 

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