MARY JANE FARMER / HERALD DEMOCRAT At least three businesses in Van Alstyne's Wilson N. Jones shopping center, U.S. Highway 75 and FM 121, suffered considerable damage from high winds and rains Friday night. These include the Van Alstyne Family Clinic, Edward Jones and Nails Day.

HERALD DEMOCRAT

VAN ALSTYNE -- Hail, high winds and heavy rains in Van Alstyne on Friday night and early Saturday morning left a trail of damage in their wake.

The National Weather Service sent out warnings of a severe thunderstorm moving from Tom Bean southwesterly to Van Alstyne. A NWS spokeswoman said Saturday there were actually two storms that raced through the area, reaching wind speeds of 70 mph and dropping hail that, in some places, was baseball size as it moved into Collin County.

Some of that baseball-size hail fell in Tom Bean, and Fannin County. Trenton, received quarter-sized hail stones. Hail stones that dropped in the Tioga area were about the size of golf balls, the spokeswoman said, and she added that Southmayd received winds up to 50 mph and there was wind damage to a home west of Pottsboro near the Cooke County line.

Van Alstyne City Manager Bill Herrington said the city lost its power, which caused Public Works co-director James Parrish to activate the emergency generators necessary to keep the water and sewer systems working.

"It's important to keep the water level up in the storage tower," Herrington said. He assisted the city's solo dispatcher, who also worked off the emergency generators.

Van Alstyne Fire Captain Brett Bearden said the first call of a problem was a tree that blew over on East Jefferson, on the east side of the railroad tracks. Fire department staff, including volunteers, sawed that tree up until they could remove it from the roadway danger zone.

Firefighters also assisted at other locations where trees fell and, in some cases, landed on houses or vehicles, including NE Main and 6th streets. On Knob Hill Road, a downed power line caught grass on fire, and brush trucks were sent to extinguish that.

It may have been the second wave of severe weather that lifted up roofs, in one case blowing it off its building.

Three businesses caught the brunt of those high winds, which lifted up and removed much of their rooftops in the WNJ center, at the northeast corner of F.M. 121 and U.S. Highway 75. The Van Alstyne Family Clinic, Edward Jones and Nails Day businesses received rain damage inside them from the storm.

Firefighters went inside the doctors' clinic, Bearden said, in efforts to protect the expensive equipment and patient records inside. They laid tarps over as much as they could to keep water off, and stayed on scene until business owners arrived.

Electricity was restored within about two hours.