Pop-up thunderstorm splits trees, starts multiple fires

SHERMAN, Texas (KXII) - Two pop-up thunderstorms merging Sunday evening were the force behind split trees and broken limbs.

“I opened the garage door, and everything in the garage door started circling and started coming outside and falling,” said Michelle Zamora, who lost a tree during the storm.

News 12′s meteorologists tracked winds up to 48 mph, just falling short of the threshold of 58 mph to classify it as a severe thunderstorm.

“I actually thought it was a tornado,” said Zamora. “All these trees were bent over.”

In Sherwood Shores, lightning struck a three-story home, starting a fire in the attic.

“One of our volunteers lives fairly close to that home, and he said, ‘I knew when it hit, it shook my whole house,’” said Sherwood Shores Fire Chief Tim Bilderback. “He said, ‘it’s probably the loudest lightning strike I’ve heard in a while.’”

The fire department said no one was home at the time.

“It’s still a lot of losses,” said Bilderback. “It smokes up the whole house and just the water damage from trying to put out the fire.”

Lightning also sparked three other tree fires in Sherwood Shores, and Whitesboro Fire said they responded to four grass fires during the storm.

As cleanup starts, many are just grateful for the few inches separating homes from falling trees and the clear skies that followed.

“We had a car parked here also, and it just barely missed it and the house,” said Zamora. “It was scary. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I’ve lived in this area all my life.”

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