Joyland Temporarily Closes Due to Thursday Storm Damage
On Thursday, July 9th, an isolated storm cell quickly developed over the northern areas of the City of Lubbock.
Storm damage reports from across the area include metal roofing panels blown off of rooftops and twisted around utility polls caused by strong damaging wind speeds.
Joyland Amusement Park seems to have been one of the places which suffered enough damage from the storm that they have temporarily closed, according to an announcement made on social media Thursday night.
The strong damaging wind speeds caused trees to fall, and several comments made on Joyland's Facebook page suggested that there may have been some injuries. However, numerous comments indicated that the Joyland staff acted swiftly to care for and calm those in the park during the time of the storm.
One comment included a picture of some of the damage at Joyland:
Another poster shared a photo of a tree downed near the south entrance of Mackenzie Park:
Though the storm had strong gusts of damaging wind, there have been no official reports of any tornadic activity, nor were the elements available in the atmosphere to create such a weather event.
The wind damage is likely due to the high base of the storms and the storms creating a downburst that blows wind at the ground level in all directions from the downdraft of the storm, also known as straight-line wind.
Straight-line wind can be as damaging as wind speeds associated with tornados and damage is often confused with that of damage created by tornados due to the power and strength of straight-line wind speeds.
A great explanation for straight-line wind becoming damaging can be watched here: