Strong storms whip through Texas Panhandle

The Associated Press

A fast-moving storm with winds up to 75 mph ripped through the Texas Panhandle during rush-hour Thursday, destroying a storage building and causing at least one traffic accident with injuries.

Two people were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries in the accident that occurred in the midst of the storm, said Danny Alexander, a spokesman for the Randall County Sheriff's Office.

Details were not immediately available but flying dirt made visibility low on the roads around 5 p.m., officials said.

"There was a lot of traffic, everybody running around trying to get home," Alexander said.

The area was one of several in the Panhandle under tornado or flash flood warnings as the storm system moved through. Swirling funnel clouds were reported on Randall County's east side.

One building, believed to be a storage building, was "blown apart" when fierce straight line winds slammed into it, scattering debris from the structure across a farm-to-market road, Alexander said.

Scott Carr, director of the Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport, said some minor damage occurred at one hangar at the airport. A dispatcher at the Potter County Sheriff's Office said the area also had some downed power lines.

In West Texas, wind gusts up to 80 mph went through Guthrie in King County and golf ball-sized hail hit halfway, just west of Plainview, officials at the National Weather Service in Lubbock said.

Further east, in Armstrong County, softball sized hail was blamed for breaking several windshields of vehicles traveling along U.S. Highway 287.

"We had some pretty good winds, but we were spared," said Armstrong County sheriff's dispatcher Chris Bowles.

Storms also kicked up earlier in the day in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and in the Houston area, where officials were investigating whether storms played a role in the partial collapse of some cinder block walls at a Rice University construction site. One person was killed and seven were injured in the accident.

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