Frightening Dallas Storms Lead to Evacuations Special

The storm season is here, and already Texas has been hit with serious rain and the problems resulting from it. Nowhere was it more evident than in Dallas, where evacuations took place.

Storms in the Dallas area were accompanied by lightning and strong winds across the region of North Texas brought power outages, major flooding and significant damage to the Dallas area Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Voluntary evacuations took place in parts of the city. Although there have been no deaths or injuries reported, the storm that hit the Dallas-Fort Worth area had winds up to 70 mph Wednesday night. These winds, along with thunderstorms accompanying them, dumped more than eight inces of rain on parts of Dallas. During power outages, approximately 260,000 customers were without power, until early the following morning when about 150,000 customers had power back on. The storm created havoc on the roads leading in and out of the city area, especially in West Dallas. Lightning strikes are thought to be responsible for a fire that destroyed a large, two story house in a town near the Dallas area. Airline flights were cancelled out of Dallas Love Field where Southwest Airlines alone canceled 21 flights. 13 other planes had to be diverted from the area because of the storms, according to Brad Hawkins, a spokesman for the airlines. I interviewed Randy Stelly who flew into Dallas on Wednesday from a conference in Ohio and was unable to get out of the city until Friday morning, waiting a total of 30 hours at the airport. He said, "It was horrible---horrible. Inside the airport we could see the lightning flashing, and it was the worst I have ever seen in my life." He went on to say American Airlines was rude to its customers and unhelpful, in spite of the confusion at the airport, but a Kenyan shift supervisor helped him by giving him a cot to rest on. He got a total of 9 boarding passes for 9 different flights that were canceled before he got one to get out of Dallas back to Louisiana. This rain storm brought confusion and was frightening, according to Stelly. June also begins the hurricane season which is predicted to bring anywhere between nine and fourteen major storms according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (parent organization of the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center) which recently released their official Hurricane Season 2009 Forecast. Given the Dallas experience, at this early date in June, it is likely critical to get a plan in place, as recommended by medical, security and weather officials. A list of precautions can be found at the American Red Cross site here.