Early Tuesday morning severe thunderstorms passed through Denton, leaving trees and limb debris in the roadways, overturned trash cans while causing power outages and flash flooding throughout the area.
Approximately 9,000 homes were affected in Denton at the peak outage early this morning, said Dustin Sternbeck, the chief communications officer for the city.
Currently about 2,350 homes are without power. The city and Denton Municipal Electric update a citywide map available .
鈥淲e just ask everybody right now to have a little bit of patience,鈥� Sternbeck said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e working diligently to address each issue as it arises.鈥�
Sternbeck said the Denton Fire Department has responded to 56 calls for service since 5 a.m., and street crews are currently deployed to clear debris from the right of ways around the city.
Denton police headquarters and the municipal building downtown is flooded, Sternbeck said. He wasn鈥檛 sure how bad it was at 9:45 a.m. when he spoke with the Denton Record-Chronicle, but will post updates on online and on social media if closures occur.
The only roadway currently closed is at Eagle Drive near Locust and Elm streets due to a water main break. Crews are working to repair it.
The power outages were caused by thunderstorms producing large hail and straight-line wind gusts over 80 mph in Denton, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
Steve Fano, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said that high gusts of straightline wind is what led to the tornado sirens sounding in several parts of Denton County.
鈥淭he TWU area had the highest wind gust at 83 mph,鈥� Fano said. 鈥淚t was a bad deal. It鈥檚 not unprecedented for us to get this kind of system, but we haven鈥檛 seen a huge complex of storms producing these kinds of winds in a very long time.鈥�
Fano said that the National Weather Service began issuing its first warning for the severe thunderstorms for the area at 3 a.m.
Denton has received about 2 inches of rain over the past 48 hours with parts of Denton County receiving three inches, mostly toward the southern parts of the area near the Tarrant County line, Fano said.
The flash flooding warning will continue until 11 a.m.
Fano said that the current rain will move out of the area by midday with scattered showers expected later this afternoon and another round of severe thunderstorms in the area later this evening and overnight.
Other highlights from Sternbeck:
- If you鈥檙e visiting the North Branch Library this morning, be sure to use the staff entrance.
- Denton Municipal Airport remains open.
- All camp activities for Parks and Recreation remain open (as of 9:45 a.m.)
- Water Works Park and the Civic Center pool will be closed on Tuesday
- Denton County Grand Jury is canceled