Another round of powerful storms brought rain, high winds and large hail to Texas on Tuesday, causing widespread damage, knocking out power to more than a million utility customers and halting flights for several hours at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
The storms left widespread damage across the Dallas area, including felled power lines, uprooted trees, and tractor-trailers that were overturned, according to the National Weather Service.
More than a million Texas utility customers were without power on Tuesday afternoon, most of them concentrated in North Texas and the eastern part of the state, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates data from utility companies across the country. Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins, the top executive in Dallas County, said on Tuesday that power could be out for days, and that the authorities were prioritizing restoring service at hospitals and law enforcement buildings. Hospitals were operating on generator power, he added.
Central Texas faced the greatest risk of severe weather on Tuesday afternoon, with forecasts showing a moderate risk over a melon-shaped area that included Abilene, Waco, Austin and Midland. Amarillo, Dallas and San Antonio were also at risk.
A line of thunderstorms with wind gusts of up to 86 miles per hour was recorded in the Denton area, northwest of Dallas, and a second round brought winds of about 60 m.p.h., said Tom Bradshaw, a meteorologist at the Weather Service office in Fort Worth.