Editor's note: This page is a summary of severe weather news for Wednesday, May 29.
Localized flooding swept through much of Texas and the southern Plains on Wednesday, with storms killing a teenager and knocking out power to more than 1 million homes and businesses as residents began cleaning up.
Following the storm warning, the National Weather Service said in a report Wednesday that more severe weather is coming from the west, with rounds of thunderstorms expected on Thursday and Friday. The weather service also issued severe thunderstorm warnings for parts of Colorado, North Dakota, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico and Florida on Wednesday, with the potential for golf ball-sized hail in some areas. and strong winds reaching 70 miles per hour.
More than 380,000 electric customers in Texas were still without power Wednesday night, and another 70,000 in Kentucky, Arkansas, Virginia and Missouri were still in the dark, according to the USA TODAY outage tracker among.
Oncor Electric said some customers in the Dallas area may not have power restored until Friday.
“We recognize the hardship and inconvenience our customers experience following severe storms like this and remain committed to restoring power as quickly and safely as possible,” the company said in a statement.
According to AccuWeather, some areas around Dallas received nearly 2 inches of rain in less than four hours on Tuesday. The rainfall in Dallas for the entire month of May 2023 was 2.35 inches.
The severe storm also affected travel at major airport hubs. An American Airlines plane at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was blown off the runway amid high winds. The FAA issued ground-based grounding orders 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 crews shocked by severe storm damage
Cecilia Wichmann knew the storm would hit the Dallas area on Tuesday, but she didn't anticipate its intensity or the widespread damage it would cause.
The 44-year-old emergency medical services worker left his home around 6 a.m. and soon arrived at his headquarters in Forney, a small city east of Dallas. She and some colleagues stood outside the building, feeling the temperature drop and the wind pick up.
“That's when I saw things were going to get worse,” she said. “Rain and wind come out of nowhere.”
Throughout the day, she saw more than a dozen 18-wheelers rolled over and at least 100-150 homes damaged by fallen trees and wind. Elsewhere, a 16-year-old construction worker died when a building under construction collapsed near Houston.
Hiding in a Central Texas Closet
Early Tuesday, Kenneth Radley spent hours watching local news, waiting for forecasts to see whether severe storms in Central Texas would reach his home outside Dallas in Kaufman County. They did, unleashing torrential rain, hail and strong winds in a matter of seconds.
Radley rushed into the small closet off the living room—his first escape from the storm. The 79-year-old came out to see dozens of trees uprooted and the exterior of his home shredded by hail. The wind blew away the door to his detached garage, burying his truck and golf cart under a pile of debris.
“It took us all day to dig out my truck,” Radley said. The windshield was cracked and the doors and hood were dented, but it was otherwise drivable, he said.
Same home, different tornadoes in Kentucky
Powerful storms have spread damage beyond Texas. In Hopkins County, Kentucky, Mark Minton has spent the past few days thinking about the likelihood of a tornado hitting the same house twice.
In 2021, an EF-4 tornado devastated downtown Dawson Springs, destroying more than two dozen homes, and then struck Minton's home in the small unincorporated community of Barnsley. Attacked home. An EF-3 tornado followed a nearly identical path through the county on Sunday, this time touching down a mile north of Dawson Springs, moving east toward Charleston and then northeast toward Barnes Li mobile.
Minton's home was vandalized again.
“Statistically, it's like throwing a dart and hitting the same hole twice,” Minton said. “We're trying to determine if the build is safe. Because you have two of these problems in a row, it's hard to do it again Make this decision.” Read more here.
– Stephanie Kuzdiem, Louisville Courier-Journal
In Houston, 'People are scared'
Dallas and Houston recorded wind gusts of more than 70 mph, and Dallas County officials issued a disaster declaration on Tuesday, warning that “significant numbers” of residents would be without power for days.
The latest storm tore through the state, killing nearly two dozen people, comes just days after deadly weather hit the region over the Memorial Day weekend. At least seven people have been reported dead in Texas, and the disaster began two weeks ago when high winds and flooding swept through the Houston area, killing at least eight people and leaving some residents without power for more than a week.
“A lot of people are without power again. We just completed the blackout order a few weeks ago,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the county that includes Houston, said in a social media post. , it was very devastating and a lot of people are still trying to recover, so I know people are scared.
In Forney, 'people were caught off guard'
At Forney, Wichman and her colleagues took shelter inside the operations center, surrounded by 911 dispatchers fielding a steady stream of calls. After the power outage, rain and hail pounded on the windows and bright lightning lit up the sky. A “bang” cut through the thunder, and emergency crews began looking for the source of the thunder: a smashed cubicle door.
About an hour later, Wichman and her partner set out to survey the damage and respond to emergency calls. The roof was ripped off the building across the street. The streets were strewn with piles of broken debris and branches. Cars were flooded.
In between calls, she watches live footage from her home to check in on her two dogs: a Dalmatian named Twix and Bam Bam, her Great Dane.
“There really wasn't any damage to my place, so thankfully they're all OK,” she said. “This was definitely one of the worst storms I've seen in years. People were definitely caught off guard.”
Dallas hit by storm
In the Dallas area, power outages prompted election officials to extend voting hours in the state's runoff elections. Royce City's First United Methodist Church in northeast Dallas was destroyed in a fire that firefighters temporarily blamed on lightning strikes from the storm.
Amanda Murski's Range Rover was smashed in her daughter's driveway in Dallas and buried under a large tree that was uprooted by direct winds.
“It was unbelievable, the wind was crazy,” Muskie told Fox4news.com. “It was just one car, it didn't matter.”
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 that have been approved under a disaster declaration middle. The declaration allows FEMA to fund temporary housing, emergency home repairs, property damage, disaster legal services, and medical and funeral expenses resulting from disasters.
Here's why storm season looks so busy
With at least 850 tornadoes confirmed to date and several major tornado outbreaks, 2024 is one of the busiest years on record. Even some of the most seasoned storm chasers are shocked by the tornado activity so far this year. Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, said the United States has seen four consecutive days of at least 30 tornadoes of EF-1 magnitude or stronger. On average twice a year.
Meteorologists who spoke to USA TODAY attributed it to an active jet stream and a series of severe storms moving from the West Coast into the central United States. “It was a significant factor in many severe thunderstorms and tornadoes” over the past few weeks, said Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. Read more here.
– Elizabeth Weiss, Dinah Voyles Pulver and Doyle Rice
