Thunderstorm Wind in Travis County, Texas

A thunderstorm produced estimated wind gusts of 50 mph that knocked a 23 year old woman kayaker into Lake Pflugerville where she drowned. She was reported missing Sunday evening and her body was recovered Wednesday June 12.

Widespread damage occurred over portions of central Austin when a large severe thunderstorm rolled through the downtown area. Numerous reports of large trees and branches were down along with wind blown hail. The hardest hit area was downtown near Tarrytown, Hyde Park, UT campus, and the I-35 corridor just north of the river. The combination of baseball size hail and winds of 70 to 80 mph blew out building and apartment windows throughout this area. Windows on the Texas Capitol building were blown out as well. Lions golf course and Morris Williams course sustained damage and had to briefly close. Power was knocked off to nearly 20000 customers. Large old oak trees were damaged and the city of Austin spent over 2 million dollars in cleanup and response. Total monetary losses are being estimated at 50 million dollars.

Power out to 75,000. May take 48 hours to restore. Numerous structural fires due to lightning. Hundreds of power and phone lines down. Many without power for over 48 hours. The combined effect of high winds and heavy rain caused the collapse of a wall in one building and destroyed the roof of another building in a downtown Austin apartment complex. This forced the evacuation of 50 residents. The driver and passenger in a vehicle were injured when a construction barrier was blown over on their truck. Another driver was injured slightly when lightning struck a truck, tossing out bricks that were stacked in the truck bed. Other minor injuries were reported in Austin due to flying pieces of broken glass. A boatload of tourists on Lake Travis had to be rescued due to the combination of rough waters stirred up by high winds. Several football games were cancelled or terminated early, again preventing injuries.