This handout photo taken on May 26, 2024, courtesy of Jacob Chambers shows an aerial view of widespread damage from a tornado in Valley View, Texas. Photo: JACOB CHAMBERS, HANDOUT/AFP via Getty Images

The 44-year-old emergency medical services worker left her home around 6 a.m. and soon arrived at headquarters in Forney, a small city just east of Dallas. Standing outside the building with some of her coworkers, she felt the temperature drop and the wind pick up.

“That’s when I saw that it was going to get bad,” she said. “The rain and the wind came out of nowhere.”

Throughout the day, she saw over a dozen 18-wheelers flipped onto their sides and at least 100-150 homes destroyed by fallen trees and wind damage. Elsewhere, a 16-year-old construction worker was killed when a building under construction collapsed around him near Houston. An American Airlines plane spun away from its jetway in high winds at Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport.

Localized flooding from the storms swept across much of Texas and the southern Plains, an area already reeling from weeks of angry weather. On Wednesday, storm-weary Texans were cleaning up from those latest drenching rains and hurricane-force wind gusts that knocked out power to more than 1 million homes and businesses. And they were bracing for more brutal weather.

Texas awaits more 'severe' storms

"Thunderstorms over Central Texas will gradually diminish this morning, while additional storms will roll in from the west," the National Weather Service said in an advisory Wednesday. "A few strong to severe storms are possible."

The advisory added that multiple rounds of thunderstorms were expected Thursday through Friday, some of which "may be severe and contain heavy rain."