Severe Thunderstorm Hits El Paso

A severe thunderstorm with winds of 78 mph slammed central and east El Paso Tuesday evening.

The storm packed hurricane-force winds, lightning and flooding rains.

Residents in East-Central El Paso were left in the dark after transformers in the Ascarate, Dallas, Trowbridge and Austin areas, said Teresa Souza, spokeswoman for El Paso Electric.

The outage also extended to the airport, said spokeswoman Liz Bellegarde, but the bigger problem there was the actual weather event. Bellegarde said airport operations reported “they’d never seen anything like it.”

Flights resumed once the storm passed, she said.

The storm’s fury also caused the collapse of a canopy at Fort Bliss’ Global Reach Gate, also near El Paso International Airport, reported post authorities.

Drivers had to deal with sheets of rain falling down along Paisano Dr., then Montana.

In the first hour of the storm, the National Weather Service measured 1.7 inches of rain at the airport.

“El Paso received nearly as much rain in one hour as we have since the beginning of the year,” said ABC-7 meteorologist Jennifer Myers.

Residents called ABC-7 Tuesday evening to report what looked like a fire at Western Refining.

Fire Department John Concha explained that whenever there is a power outage, extra fuel is pumped to the burn towers and the burn is much larger and brighter. “This is common practice for a power outage,” he said.

Tune in to ABC-7’s Good Morning El Paso Wednesday for a complete survey of the damage.