Heavy rain moved through Dallas-Fort Worth area early Tuesday. Dallas-based electric provider Oncor reported about 19,000 customers without power, mainly in North Texas as the storms moved east.
Shortly before 4 a.m., parts of North Texas woke up to tornado sirens.
“We saw some kind of smaller-scale circulations develop and these actually prompted us to issue a couple tornado warnings across the Metroplex,” said Lamont Bain, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Some parts of North Texas have seen nearly 2 inches of rain.
Tornadoes in the Panhandle
Several cars of a BNSF Railway freight train have derailed in the Texas Panhandle during tornadoes that left two people slightly injured.
The Roberts County Sheriff's Office says four cars derailed Monday night near Miami. The area is about 20 miles from Pampa, where the National Weather Service reports at least five tornadoes touched down in a rural area.
BNSF spokesman Joe Faust on Tuesday blamed twisters for the derailment of four empty cars around 7:30 p.m. Monday. Faust says the two crewmembers on board were not harmed. He says the 87-car train was headed from Wellington, Kansas, to Amarillo.
The Gray County Sheriff's Office says one house and several businesses were damaged during the twisters east of Pampa. Nobody was hurt.
Tornado damages Halliburton complex
Two Texas Panhandle sheriff's deputies were exposed to natural gas, not chemicals, after a tornado damaged a Halliburton complex near Pampa.
The Gray County Sheriff's Office initially said two deputies were exposed to unknown chemicals Monday night while searching the storm-damaged property. The deputies were checked by emergency medical personnel at the scene and both declined to be taken to a hospital.
The sheriff's office, in a statement Tuesday, said the deputies were apparently exposed to natural gas before the lines were shut off. No further danger was found at the scene.
A Halliburton statement says its Pampa district office, which recently closed, was hit by a tornado Monday night but no employees were present. The company says no chemicals were at the site and those were earlier removed as part of the facility closing.
No damage estimate was immediately available from Halliburton.
Photo credit: John Lee/The Pampa News
