Severe storms and high winds swept through Dallas on Sunday afternoon, leaving behind a trail of downed trees and disrupted power lines.
The storm cells moved south through both Tarrant and Dallas counties. The National Weather Service warned that the storms were “capable of gusts near 60-65 mph and quarter-sized hail. … Seek shelter!”
Dallas, however, seemingly experienced the brunt of the outages compared to Fort Worth.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson tweeted just before 6:30 p.m. on Sunday to relay a report from Oncor, the Texas electric utility company, which reported that “91,000 customers in Dallas remain without power. Its crews are at work clearing downed trees/branches and fixing power lines.”
By 8:30 a.m. on Labor Day Monday, however, that number had decreased to 36,000 outages waiting to be resolved, according to Mayor Johnson.
Oncor explained on Monday that its “teams [had] restored power to more than 80K customers after yesterday’s storm.” Efforts to fix issues promptly led the company to bring in additional teams from outside of Texas to assist.
Videos of the storm in Dallas showed sheets of rain pounding the city, causing drivers considerable issues as they struggled with high winds and low visibility.
This weather is wild, be careful. Drivers on North Central Expressway between Fitzhugh going extremely slow with this blinding rain. @NBCDFW @NBCDFWWeather pic.twitter.com/78YL7s7AEg
— Sophia Beausoleil (@SophiaNBC5) September 4, 2022
The winds also felled many trees across the area, and the Dallas Zoo shared an image of a large piece of debris that had landed in one of the exhibits.
Due to a strong storm this afternoon, we sustained significant tree damage, have debris in the Zoo, and have a Zoo-wide power outage. Thankfully, teams have confirmed habitats are intact, animals are safe, and no guest or staff injuries have been reported. pic.twitter.com/B0xLZlLWPY
— Dallas Zoo (@DallasZoo) September 4, 2022
Zoo officials reassured people that, despite the complete power outage and damage, “teams have confirmed habitats are intact, animals are safe, and no guest or staff injuries have been reported.”
This new round of rainfall and power outages follows in the wake of flash floods across the DFW area last month that led Governor Greg Abbott to issue a disaster declaration, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.