Tornado damages roof in Fort Worth

Image 1 of 4

A tornado ripped the top part of the roof off a Fort Worth office building on Thursday afternoon during a Tornado Warning that was in effect for Tarrant County.

FOX 4 viewer Frank Rositas posted video to the FOX4 Facebook page of sheet metal roofing being peeled off a building in north Fort Worth during the warning, about 4:30 p.m.

The office building is located off of I-35W near Meacham Boulevard. The National Weather Service says it happened less than a quarter-mile from their office in Fort Worth.

Rositas saw the tornado hitting as he sat in traffic, so he quickly hit record on his cell phone.

"As soon as I turn on the video, it just creeped across the road here and...just caught the corner of it, so I focused better on it," he said. "Started seeing the roof of the building peeling right off."

There was a large amount of debris in the parking lot around the building on the ground from the roof. There were also multiple cars damaged due to the falling sheet metal, but there were no reported of injuries.

The owners of some of the cars lying underneath sections of roofing will have to be towed. Workers in the building realized pretty quickly that they were right underneath a very powerful storm.

"The rain was coming down straight, then all of a sudden it switched directions and started pointing north and then the debris started flying," said Jenny Rickner, who took shelter.

Not far from where that roof was peeled off, strong winds damaged glass panes at a convenience store at the intersection of I-35W and 28th Street. Just across the street from that store, the front part of a cell phone store was knocked to the ground.

There were no reported injuries at either location.

People in Denton and Wise Counties dealt with wind damage and hail ranging from pea to golf ball size. There were reports of vehicles and windows damaged, but no injuries.

Delays at DFW Airport peaked at 90 minutes on Thursday evening, but later dropped to about an hour on average. Travelers were urged to check with airlines on arrivals and departures.

In Ponder, a football game was happening when three out of four of poles at the stadium snapped during the storm.

No one was hurt.

The junior high football team was playing Breckenridge at 5:30 p.m., but they never actually played, according to the superintendent.

There was a small crowd there, and staff heeded the National Weather Service warnings and moved everyone into a nearby field house to take shelter.

They waited out the storm and then went outside to see that winds took down the poles.

The power went out is some areas, but most outages were limited.

Wise County had the most without power, with just over 1,500 customers. Dallas County had just over 300, and Denton and Collin counties had 138.

In Tarrant County where the tornado touched down, just 27 customers were without power.

~

FOX 4 is on YouTube -- http://bit.ly/fox4subscribe