Sunday storms knock out power for thousands downtown, rain expected until early evening

A line of storms that moved south through North Texas knocked out power for thousands of people in downtown Dallas late Sunday afternoon.

An outage map on Oncor’s website showed that more than 9,600 customers downtown were without power as of 5:15 p.m.

Thirteen people were trapped inside of an elevator at Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas while they were going up to the observation deck, said Jason Evans, a spokesman for Dallas Fire-Rescue. No one was injured and all of occupants of the elevator were able to make their way down, he added.

The Dallas Zoo tweeted around 8 p.m. that it will have a delayed opening until 11 a.m. because of storm clean up.

Steve Fano, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the storms are expected to clear out sometime after 7 p.m., and added that wind gusts of up to 48 mph were reported at Dallas Love Field Airport. Some parts of Dallas County, including Addison, reported wind speeds over 50 mph, Fano said.

“This storm actually started near Frisco and has kind of held together as it moved south,” Fano said. “There is still a low potential for a few more storms unti sunset.”

The weather service tweeted shortly before 4:30 p.m. that the storms are expected to produce hail and frequent lightning. Shortly after 5 p.m., the NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning for southwestern portions of Dallas County. Wind gusts up to 60 mph were expected.

Sunday’s storms moved through Dallas ahead of a cold front that is expected to lower temperatures about 10 degrees throughout this week, Fano said. He said the temperature Sunday night could be in the upper 60s.

“It’s not going to be an abrupt cold front like we get in the winter time,” he said. “It will just be kind of an increase in wind speeds and temperatures will slowly start to cool.”