Roof damaged as storms hit Rio Grande Valley

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June 4, 2009

Anonymous The Huntsville Item Thu Jun 04, 2009, 11:30 AM CDT

FALFURRIAS, Texas — Strong storms caused power outages, downed trees, street flooding and disrupted a graduation ceremony Wednesday in the Rio Grande Valley.

Larry Silvas, a dispatcher at the Brooks County Sheriff’s Department, said there were no reports of injuries from the afternoon storms.

Gonzalo Benavides, emergency management coordinator, fire marshal and fire chief for Brooks County and the city of Falfurrias, said part of a roof blew off a residence about five miles east of town.

“We had some strong winds. I had several downed trees that were in the middle of road. I still have five streets closed due to flooding,” said Benavides.

Silvas said lightning hit two electrical transformers, causing some power outages. He did not know how extensive the outages were.

“The lightning was pretty bad. We had some minor flooding within the city limits of Falfurrias. We had a pretty good lightning show,” Silvas said.

Benavides said lightning caused a fire at an oilfield tank.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Joseph Tomaselli in Brownsville said he had had reports of funnels clouds near Red Gate and in Edinburg.

“We have gotten reports of mothball-size hail, but the Doppler radar suggests golf ball-sized hail in Hildalgo, Brooks and Starr counties,” Tomaselli said.

He said there were numerous reports of quarter-sized hail in the city of Mission in southern Hildago County.

A large thunderstorm developed just north of Roma, prompting a graduation ceremony to be relocated from an outdoor stadium to an indoor facility, Tomaselli said.

“We wanted to move everyone indoors so they wouldn’t be harmed,” he said.

Falfurrias is about 160 miles south of San Antonio.

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Roof damaged as storms hit Rio Grande Valley

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