Though the City of Lubbock avoided a direct tornado strike, the area still bore the brunt of a powerful storm that rolled through Thursday night.
Tornadoes touched down in western Lubbock County, while large hail, flooding, and damaging winds forced residents to take shelter while sirens blared around town.
Joe Moudy, the City of Lubbock’s Emergency Management Director, said the Emergency Operations Center was activated around 4 p.m. Thursday as tornado threats intensified.
The storm entered Texas from eastern New Mexico around 5 p.m., and the first tornado warnings followed shortly after.Moudy described an all-hands-on-deck approach involving multiple city and emergency departments.
“Really having all of our representatives in place ahead of the storm allows us to address those challenges. Instead of having to try to locate someone, we already have our representatives in place, ready to go ahead of the hazard.”
He stressed that once a tornado warning is issued, time is critical—and the safest option is to shelter immediately.
“They need to go to the lowest level of a building. They need to go to the most interior room away from windows and closed doors that need to just get to the most interior and lowest level of that building,” Moudy said.
“Trying to locate a shelter is actually more dangerous than staying where they're at and hunkering down.”
Moudy also encouraged residents to use multiple alert systems, including signing up for LBK Alert and enabling Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) notifications on their cell phones.
Lubbock’s outdoor warning system was first fully activated in April 2022, and while the 45 sirens had been periodically tested on Friday mornings once a month, Thursday marked the first time they were truly put to use.
The first tornado was spotted near Morton, Texas, cutting across open fields in Cochran County. The National Weather Service warned that the storm was capable of producing significant damage and included apple-sized hail.
Some sirens rang again on Friday as the threat of additional storms lingered into the weekend, but no further tornado touchdowns have been reported in the area.