Severe thunderstorms tore through Central Texas on Tuesday night, moving into the Austin area and the I-35 corridor right at 9 o’clock and leaving behind downed trees, power outages and scattered damage. A man was critically injured when a tree fell on him outside Green Mesquite BBQ off Barton Springs Road in Austin.
At one point, more than 5,400 Austin Energy customers were without power, though most of those outages have since been restored. The storm also washed away ground beneath part of Berry Creek Drive, and in Georgetown, damage was visible at a gas station where Chalmer Williams took shelter as the weather blew through. “Luckily, she lets me in, and in my mind I’m thinking ‘man, maybe this isn’t just a thunderstorm,’” Williams said of the cashier who signaled people to come inside.
Thursday night? No — Tuesday night was the hit, and the timing matched the forecast unusually well. Troy Kimmel said the storm moved into the Austin area and the I-35 corridor right at 9 o’clock, “and that was basically what time the model suggested would happen.”
The National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm watch for parts of Central Texas, and the region was under a level 2 out of 5 severe risk. The Hill Country had the highest chance of hail 1 to 2 inches in diameter, with wind gusts of 60 mph to 70 mph possible. Much of the area could also pick up 4 to 6 inches of rain through the weekend, keeping flooding concerns in play as another round of storms was expected to increase this evening and overnight.
The tension in this system is that the threat is not over when the sky clears for a few hours. Multiple rounds of storms, heavy rain and a cooling trend are still ahead, and the same weather pattern that already brought damage Tuesday night is set to remain active through the weekend. Williams, who hid at the gas station as the roof started to come apart, put the lesson plainly: when the storm gets that violent, the move is to get inside first and figure out the rest later.
That is the answer for Austin weather heading into the next stretch: the worst of Tuesday’s damage has eased for many customers, but the atmosphere is still primed for more storms, more rain and renewed problems on already battered ground.
