At a Glance
- Widespread damage was left behind after strong winds struck Greenville, Texas.
- The storm caused structural damage in the downtown area of the city.
- The Hunt County Sheriff said no injuries were reported.
Members of a North Texas church damaged by a severe storm say it was only a matter of seconds from hearing the winds to watching as the roof was ripped off the building.
"The roof of our building literally collapsed right in front of us and started coming down," Corbin Hudgins, who was at the church for a youth group meeting, told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. "Water was coming under the door flooding the place."
Wynema Payne, who arrived early for choir practice, told KXAS-TV, "Within three seconds, we heard a loud boom and the roof here was taken off and deposited in that Sunday school class probably 30 feet from us."
The church was one of several structures damaged Wednesday evening in Greenville, Texas, as severe storms swept across the Southern Plains.
No injuries were reported in the town of about 27,000 located some 50 miles northeast of Dallas, Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. After a damage survey, the National Weather Service concluded that the damage was caused by straight-line winds as high as 85 mph, not a tornado.
(MORE: Where Severe Storms Could Strike Next)
Aerial footage from NBCDFW.com showed the church's roof slashed open in several places.
Pastor Chet Haney told KXAS that the damage "is pretty extensive but not to the church because the church is not a building. Our church is fine but our building is hit pretty hard."
Haney said the church would have been filled for Wednesday night services if the storm had hit 15 minutes later.
Other buildings damaged in Greenville included the city's Farmers Market and a Whataburger, CBS Dallas-Fort Worth also reported.
Several streets in Greenville were flooded with up to 3 feet of water, while high-water rescues were needed in Sulphur Springs, about 36 miles east of Greenville, according to the National Weather Service.
Large hailstones – some as big as tennis balls – fell in areas northeast of Dallas as the storms arrived.
More than 20,000 homes and businesses were without power statewide Wednesday night, according to poweroutage.us. Most of the outages were located in the northeastern corner of the state.
