Derecho?
Getting hit with strong winds from the backside of a thunderstorm will get your attention!
Derechos are more or less straight line winds that cover many miles and last hours. Tornados can hit and miss quickly.
One of my local radar sources allows me to go back several hours and to pan anywhere there is NWS radar — in this case to just as the storm whacked Houston. It really looks like “merely” a strong line of storms that weakens after hitting Houston, but, I don’t see earlier than that for several hours, so, hard to say.
The part of the line that was NE of Houston, though, in the Beaumont, TX, and Lake St. Charles, LA, area, is another matter. That has held together all the way to New Orleans, and at points has had that bow echo characteristic. I don’t know how much damage it’s done, but that puppy certainly appears to be potent.
We had one of those come thru Atlanta in 2014 IIRC. It was no fun. Took out power, dropped big trees on the three main roads in / out of my neighborhood. Only way out was a really circuitous route involving about 8 roads to get to a suburban arterial.
Someone told us, earlier, today that this was a derecho.
That it came in, from W TX, and made a 100 mile swath.
I haven’t seen any evidence of that, yet. Have you?