Storms Bring Accidents, Outages and School Closures - 12 News KBMT and K-JAC. News, Weather and Sports for SE Texas

The overnight storm causes a whirlwind of issues across Central Texas.

Slick roads have a hand in a tragic accident on 190 and Loop 121 in Belton. Morning traffic came to a stand-still after the crash kills one and seriously injures two others in the car.

"It may be weather related, but we believe they swerved off the road and the vehicle flipped over," said Sgt. Larry Berg with the Belton Police Dept.

Some weather-related fender benders were reported on I-35 near exit 318. Troopers say three cars ran into the barrier on the highway, and that no one was hurt.

Power was an issue for many Central Texans. It went out in small areas from Killeen to Waco. Lightning is the culprit in north Temple, hitting a pole that cut power to nearly 500 homes.

"We're repairing some insulators that were damaged by the lightning," explains Willie Leos with Oncor. Crews spend the early morning hours working and had power restored to 90 percent of customers by 8 a.m.

But that was not early enough to keep school in session at Temple High School and Edwards Academy. Administrators send kids home when power is not restored by their arrival, and they're told not to expect the lights back for a while.

"A lot of this building has interior classrooms, it's really hard to have instruction...in the dark," said Regina Corley with Temple I.S.D.

But communication goes surprisingly smoothly thanks to social media sites like Facebook. Even those without cable and power were able to stay on top of the storm. And teachers get the message to report to school anyway.

With more rain expected, those close to Wednesday's chaos ask everyone to stay safe on wet roads.

"We would ask that people try to slow down, use more caution, reduce the distractions such as cell phones, texting," said Sgt. Berg.

Reporter: Rebecca Schleicher/Photographer: Thuan Nguyen

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