A severe storm hit the North Texas area early morning on Tuesday, waking hundreds of students, causing innumerable traffic delays, and warranting three tornado warnings, two of which were for Collin County.

“Storms were very fast moving, fifty to sixty miles per hour motion,” senior meteorologist Corey Lefkof said. “It was a quick hit, likely EFO-type damage. It was a large upper level storm out of New Mexico which provided the framework for severe storms.”

As the sirens began, students had mixed reactions.

“I was worried about my dog a little bit but none of my family woke up except for my mom and she didn’t even come looking for me or anything,” senior Alisha Tapiawala said. “Initially, I wasn’t really worried but, after a while when the sirens didn’t stop, I definitely got a little scared and couldn’t go back to bed. I have been awake since four in the morning.”

The storm extended to more than five states and produced 13 tornadoes, causing multiple weather alerts such as tornado watch, wind advisory, and flash flood watch through the early morning. Regardless, some students were able to sleep soundly through the night.

“I actually didn’t even wake up. I didn’t know there was a storm until I looked on Twitter,” senior Rebecca Gottschalk said. “I am really not all that worried about storms because every time there have been sirens and we go hide downstairs, nothing bad happens to me so I’d rather just be in bed.”

Senior Rebekah McMaster is studying meteorology this year in Independent Study and Mentorship (ISM) and took the storm as an opportunity to evaluate a real-world example of what they have learned.

“Last night’s storms were very interesting because the cause was a particularly strong and active squally line,” McMaster said. “I was looking at the storm the day before and seeing what other meteorologists were predicting. My friends were asking me questions about the storms, because they know I’ve been studying the weather so they trust my opinion.”

While some Dallas-Fort Worth Texas residents ran to bathtubs and closets in fear of inclimate weather, some faculty members didn’t ever hear the tornado sirens until seeing stuff online.

“I woke up and went on Facebook to see all these people posting about tornado sirens and a huge storm, and I thought, ‘I wonder where this was,’” psychology teacher Kaitlyn Little said. “Little did I know, it was right in my area. So, I guess I slept through tornado sirens from the casual and apparently completely optional tornado warning while I was peacefully passed out in my third-floor apartment. I would have died if there was an actual tornado, without a question. But, somehow, I got the best sleep of my life.”