Things Got a Little Crazy Under a Lubbock Overpass During Wednesday’s Hailstorm

Things went a little crazy under the overpass of the Loop and University during the thick of yesterday's Lubbock hailstorm, and I was caught in the middle.

As I drove East on the Loop yesterday afternoon, I soon realized I was driving into not rain, but hail. Some of it was large, and the sound of it striking all around was pretty intense.

Jumping off The Loop at the next exit, I turned left and was caught in the midst of some Lubbock craziness. The hail was really gaining momentum, and a backup of cars at a red light there had traffic sitting under the overpass.

It wasn't until I got there that I realized that quite a few people weren't just waiting for the red light to change. Several cars in the left turning lane had turned on their emergency blinkers and were sitting there to wait it out a bit.

Apparently, the same thing was happening to the flow of traffic on the other side of the road, because I heard a lot of loud voices and some angry exchanges. Some folks were even getting out of their cars to check it out, and things were definitely getting a little wild.

The car in front of me had his flashers on, and I thought he was going to try to stay in the shelter of the overpass, too. I didn't need to lean on my horn because everyone else was. It was an intense scene, and there was nowhere else to go except back out into the hail.

But overpasses are definitely not for sheltering your car in bad weather. No matter how tempting it is or how difficult it is to jump back out in the thick of crazy weather.

Just to be completely clear on this, I put in a call to the Lubbock Police Department this morning. They confirmed that stopping and waiting out bad weather under an overpass is not recommended.

Here's some of the intense hail I managed to capture in pictures while we waited for the light to change under the overpass. Sometimes, a long light can be a good thing.

I hope that y'all were able to stay safe and avoid property and vehicle damage during Lubbock's recent hail storm.