Tornadoes touch down as severe storms move through North Texas

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The National Weather Service said it has confirmed eight tornadoes from Sunday night's violent storms.

The damage in Rio Vista, which is in Johnson County, was widespread. Video from SKY 4 shows structures with roofs torn away, overturned vehicles and downed trees and awnings.

Storm chaser Kevin Saunders told FOX 4 one of the tornadoes swept across the highway right in front of them.

"There was a moment as the tornado came down to the ground. We could only see it in the lightning flashes, so as the lightning flashed we saw it. It was right there. We got 15 to 20 seconds worth of video and it was time to head south and get out of the way of that tornado," he said.

One resident talked about riding it out inside her home.

"I heard all kinds of stuff. I felt like there was stuff hitting the house, hail. It would be like crazy, then it would be calm and then it would be crazy again. I was just pacing the floor," said Sheila Lynn.

The city's public schools were closed on Monday because of flooding and so that administrators could survey the damage. Video from SKY 4 showed a tangled mess where the playground used to be at Rio Vista Elementary School.

In Stephenville, Saunders shot video of another large wall cloud that was rotating nearly to the ground. It's not yet clear if the funnel cloud made it to the ground, but the storm did produce quarter to baseball-sized hail.

FOX 4 viewer Rachel Torralba said she was trapped between tornadoes and had to stop at a gas station to take cover. She pulled over in Glen Rose, but thinks the funnel was closer to Comanche. It was so big she couldn't capture it in one shot, she said.

Law enforcement officials in Johnson and Hill county said there were no reports of injuries.

Flooding because of the storms continues to be a problem, especially in Johnson and Ellis counties. FOX 4 Meteorologist Evan Andrews said 6 to 7 inches of rain fell in those areas.

Oncor worked throughout the day to restore power to more than 15,000 customers. Most were in Ellis County, but there were some outages in Johnson, Tarrant and Dallas counties.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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