Austin News
Severe weather hits Central Texas, closes some schools
10:30 AM CDT on Thursday, May 15, 2008
Central Texas was under the gun for severe weather for most of Wednesday evening.
Tornado warnings were issued for Llano, Burnet, Williamson and Travis counties.
The Burnet County Sheriff’s Department said they were looking into reports of trees being uprooted in the northwestern part of the county. They reported a tornado did touch down in that part of the county.
There were nervous residents in Northwest Austin and Cedar Park as a funnel cloud was reported in the 620/183 area, near Anderson Mill. There were no reports of any touchdowns in the area.
There were reports of golf ball sized hail in Round Rock, Tarrytown and Hyde Park when the storm passed.
Photos: Central Texas hail
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Raw video: Overnight storms bring heavy rainfall
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Damages have ranged from smashed car windows to caved in roofs.
Austin Energy reports that 19,900 customers are currently without power.
The largest individual outage involves an area from Barton Springs Road and South Lamar through the Zilker Park area into the Rollingwood-Inwood area.
Homeowners in Tarrytown surveyed the damage Thursday morning and began what could to be a long clean up after the massive hail storm.
The streets in the community are littered with leaves and snapped trees.
One massive branch crushed two vehicles when it fell down during the storm. Sharon Lane is one of the hardest hit areas in Tarrytown. The street is closed down in at least two places because of fallen trees. Snapped tree limbs, scattered leaves and piles of hail were still visible across the neighborhood.
The hail from the storm also dented cars and broke windows in a number of homes especially homes with sky lights.
Residents say the hail was as large as golf balls and in some areas like Sharon Lane, homeowners say it was even larger, getting as big as a baseball at one point.
When the storm blew through a lot of residents in Tarrytown took cover in a bathroom or pantry. They say the hail sounded more like a tornado ripping through the streets.
"The sound was so loud. It sounded like a freight train. It was just so intense. The only thing we could do was just sort of protect ourselves and wait till it passed. We came out here and it was just devastated. It was really weird, just three inches of hail everywhere. The fog was coming off it, just really eerie," said Randy Miller, homeowner.
There were minimal power outages in Tarrytown. Most homeowners say if they did loose power it was back up within a few hours.
Tarrytown was hit by a different hail storm just a few weeks ago but homeowners say the damage this time-around was much worse.
The outages cancelled classes at Lee Elementary, Mathews Elementary, Pease Elementary, Barton Hills Elementary, Blackshear Elementary, Campbell Elementary, Govalle Elementary and Pecan Springs Elementary. Plus the A.I.S.D. Alternative Learning Center is also closed. Norma Elementary classes will start late at 10 a.m.
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