Thursday morning’s storm left 175,000 homes and businesses without power in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Some won’t get their power restored until Saturday, power company officials said. 

Fast-moving storms that blew through the area early Thursday morning also left North Texas residents to cope with water shortages, closed schools and a massive mess.

The northbound and southbound lanes of U.S. Highway 75, as well as their accompanying frontage roads, will be closed from 3 to 3:30 p.m. today just north of Stacy Road on the Allen-Fairview border. Oncor must repair a utility pole damaged by last night's storms and reattach an aerial electric line to a new pole next to the highway.  The Texas Department of Transportation and local police departments are in charge of the closure.

Eastbound Interstate 30 in Fort Worth at Forest Park Boulevard was expected to be closed until 5 p.m. to remove a sign bridge damaged by the storm.

The city of Carrollton has asked residents to restrict water use to “essential needs” because the storm knocked out power to two pumping stations.

Power was restored Thursday afternoon to Lewisville ISD schools Hebron Valley, Coyote Ridge and Indian Creek elementaries and Arbor Creek and Creek Valley Middle schools. Classes will resume Friday.

Classes were canceled today at Allen High School because of power outages. Several other Allen elementary schools are also without power, but district officials said students there will be moved to parts of the building where there is enough light until power can be restored.

Fort Worth schools reported several campuses without power. As of 11:30 a.m. Thursday, the district reported 15 schools were still without power. Power had been restored at 13 other campuses

Parents of students in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district were scrambling to deal with the one-day closure of all schools in that district due to inclement weather.

Only one serious injury had been reported by late Thursday morning: A rig worker in Johnson County had his trailer picked up and thrown by the storm. One arm was ripped off as the trailer tumbled. The man, whose identity was not immediately available, was taken to Harris Methodist Hospital in downtown Fort Worth.

Plenty of other people had harrowing stories of what happened when the wind roared through.  Some of the scariest moments came in Desoto. About a dozen DeSoto homes were damaged, according to a city news release. The American Red Cross has set up a shelter at Community Missionary Baptist Church located at 115 West Belt Line Road.

Bridgett Walker, of Desoto, said the storm sucked her into the hallway of her home on the 1400 block of Essex Drive.

"I picked up my 6-year-old and was headed toward the hallway and the wind pushed me the rest of the way,” she said. “In the midst of all that I was praying to the Lord and calling his name. When we got to the hall with a mattress on our head everything went boom.”

She and her child survived without serious injury. Her home was not so lucky.

“The back door is gone, the windows are gone, the roof is gone,” she said. “My chimney is in the front yard. It sucked the clothes from the closets into the attic."

A roof collapsed at a duplex in the 1300 block of Briarbrook Drive in Desoto. Debra Walker and Kenneth Stinson had rented the brick home less than a month ago. They were taking care of their 4-year-old grandson, Jayden Rand.

"I heard a loud noise and the roof fell on top of my head," Mr. Stinson said. "There was no warning. The only thing I heard was my grandson calling 'papa.'""

Ms. Walker said when she woke up she was covered with insulation. "It was in my mouth, it was all over me. Rain was coming down and it was pitch black and I couldn't see anything. We tried to make it to the bathroom but it was too late, the roof was gone. It was raining in the bathroom so we got on the floor and pulled a mattress on top of us."

Courtesy of Larry Childress

High winds blew over power line towers in Carrollton early Thursday morning.

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People who went to bed Wednesday night after hearing the weather report during the 10 p.m. newscasts were caught by surprise by the foul weather. At that point, forecasters expected the storms to hit Fort Worth and Dallas around sunrise. But shortly before midnight, the squall line accelerated and arrived hours earlier, catching most people asleep.

The National Weather Service said winds of up to 75 mph were reported at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport at 3: 40 a.m. and up to 60 mph at Dallas’ Love Field. Winds of similar strength were reported in Fort Worth and Denton.

As of late Thursday morning, Fort Worth crews were clearing debris along Trinity Boulevard near East Loop 820 and in far south Fort Worth around Hulen Street, said J.J. Jones, emergency management office for the city.

The Fort Worth zoo was undergoing an assessment to determine if there was any damage there, Ms. Jones said.

Fort Worth Fire Department Lt. Kent Worley said firefighters responded to downed trees and power lines and some roof damage.

But there were no rescues due to high waters, he said.

“We were lucky because of the timing of the storms,” he said. You couldn’t have asked for a better time - early morning. That minimized people being out and possibly in harm’s way.”

In Balch Springs, damage was reported in the southern part of the city, where Marie Tedei said the storm ripped the roof off her barn and tore several “old, old” trees from the ground. One of them lay across her driveway. She said trees in her back yard appeared to have their tops sheared off.

Ms. Tedei said it appeared that a nearby apartment complex had  sustained roof damage, as had  the homes of some of her neighbors.

“I don’t know if it was a tornado or straight-line winds, but it looks like something hit first south of  I-20 and then skipped around,” Ms. Tedei said.

Weather service meteorologist Ted Ryan said the agency had reports of two areas where tornadoes may have touched down this morning. Last night, the storm that caused a tornado near Breckenridge in Stephens County also may have caused a tornado in Graford in Palo Pinto County.

“We’re trying to sort out the hardest-hit areas,” he said.

Suzanne Blackwood and her husband were asleep at their home in the 18000 block of Windtop Lane in Dallas when a strange noise jolted them.

“We heard sort of a screaming, whining sound," she said. "He’s actually been through a hurricane and he yelled ‘tornado!’”

The couple jumped out of bed, grabbed the dog and their daughter joined them.

“We all tried to cram ourselves into the closet in the hall. Lights were going off and on, we could hear transformers blowing up. It was really scary and then the noise stopped.”

A huge oak tree got uprooted and pushed into their yard. Chimneys were off rooftops. “We walked around the neighborhood about 4:30 this morning to look at all the damage and it was just incredible,” Ms. Blackwood said.

The storm also woke up Valley View Christian Church senior pastor Barry McCarty in Dallas. He went to the church early this morning to assess the damage and was shocked to find yellow insulation in the parking lot and strips of roof that reached the ground.

“There we were, 4 in the morning, standing in the lobby of the church, looking at a skylight that we had not planned,” he said.

North Texans who were not awakened by the strong winds saw its aftermath as they surveyed their neighborhoods: garbage cans overturned, fences in other neighbors’ yards and roofs on the ground. In northwest Plano, the strong winds sheared off tree limbs, smashed flower pots and twisted street signs like pretzels. One resident's electric driveway gate was blown off its track into the alley.

The storms have subsided in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and clear and sunny skies were expected for the next five days.

“We’ll see absolutely gorgeous spring weather,” Mr. Ryan said.

Staff writers Rachel Slade, Frank Trejo, Matt Goodman, Debra Dennis, Chris Buckle, Gregg Jones, Karen Shaw Anderson contributed to this report.