Coming off the heels of severe weather on Wednesday, another round of brutal storms blitzed the downtown Austin area at around 1 a.m. Thursday morning.
Strong winds and 4 inch in diameter hail pounded the Central Austin area, stripping tree limbs creating a carpet of shrubbery and debris across many neighborhood streets.
Many streets in the Austin downtown area turned into an obstacle course with the fallen debris, making your morning commute difficult.
Early estimates of the overall cost of damages are projected to be around $125 million.
Large trees have obstructed traffic at Old Enfield, as well as Duval and 32nd Street in Hyde Park.
Bill Monroe's house is 100 years old. He now has a large mess to clean up.
"I'm counting one, two, three, or half a dozen very large trees seriously damaged if not totaled," he said.
Traffic lights all long Enfield from Mopac to Downtown Austin were out for hours.
As of 1 p.m., there are approximately 11,000 people without power. Those numbers are likely to remain constant or slightly increase as customers wake up to discover they do not have power.
According to the Office of Emergency Management, some people won't have power restored until Saturday and officials are looking into the possibility of opening shelters.
There are currently 13 intersections without traffic lights operating due to the power outage.
The center of Austin was most affected on both sides of Mopac and Interstate 35. The largest individual outage (affected about 2,200 customers) involved an area from Barton Springs Road and South Lamar through the Zilker Park area into the Rollinwood-Inwood area.
Austin Energy had 35 repair crews and 35 contract tree trimming crews deployed working through the morning and afternoon.
Any customer without power should call (512) 322-9100.
Tree limbs are the greatest cause of outages and there are a number of lines down (some may be telephone, cable or other) within the affected area.
Parts of Interstate 35 were closed due to the weather but were reopened early Thursday morning.
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Squished car
A big tree demolished an SUV. Raw video.
 
Nighttime damage
Video clips of damage around Austin taken overnight. Raw video.
Downtown damage
Video clips of extensive damage around downtown Austin, including at the Capitol.
Neighborhood damage
Several neighborhoods, including Old Enfielf, were hit hard by the storm.
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At least 11 Austin Independent School District schools are without power according to AISD security. All schools in AISD will open Thursday with the exception of four campuses where Austin Energy said the power outages may exist for most of the day.
Lee, Pease, Barton Hills, Blackshear, Campbell Pecan Springs, and Matthews elementary schools along with the Alternative Learning Center will be closed.
School was also cancelled for 1st-8th grade at St. Paul Lutheran School. Govalle and Norman elementary schools were opened at 10 a.m.
All other AISD schools will be open Thursday.
One flight was delayed leaving Thursday morning, the other was late in arriving. All other flights are on schedule.
All the rain is light now with spotty showers across Central Texas and there is only a 30 percent chance of showers through Thursday night.
News 8 will provide updates throughout the day.
