UNT student Kacie Zamparelli temporarily lost her car and permanently lost her shoes in rushing floodwaters, which caused havoc all over Denton County throughout the day Tuesday.

After her car stalled, with water rushing up over the hood at one point, she escaped into rushing water on Eagle Drive, losing her shoes in the process.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

A rescuer helps a Denton motorist to safety after he was stranded on Bell Place near Clear Creek in Tuesday’s heavy rains. Storms pelted the Denton area with more than 5 inches of rain Tuesday. Tornado warnings, flooded yards and streets and scores of cars stalling all over the city also caused havoc.

“I feel like all the people on TV I saw when it flooded last year,” in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, Zamparelli said.

Ferocious flooding pelted the Denton area with a whopping 5.06 inches of rain Tuesday, as of 7 p.m. Also causing havoc were tornado warnings, flooded yards and streets, and hundreds of cars stalling all over the city. Residents had to find new ways to get home at rush hour Tuesday, with many roads closed.

No injuries were reported, but all emergency personnel — police, firefighters and paramedics — worked throughout the day putting up barricades around flooded streets and rescuing people from stranded cars.

Just before nightfall, all along Eagle Drive near the UNT campus, cars sat submerged in water up to their windows. Denton County Transportation Authority buses, able to make it through the deep water, caused huge wakes in the water, making cars bob up and down.

The area around the University of North Texas was particularly hit. Many students and Denton residents left their cars when they stalled and took refuge inside restaurants, bars and stores.

Jeremy Fee, 26, a Texas Woman’s University graduate student from Keller, got stuck in the area and sought cover inside R Bar at Eagle and Bernard streets.

“My car started to stall, and I swerved out into an apartment complex parking lot,” Fee said. “After that, I navigated through several apartment complex parking lots and ended up here.”

Similar stories were reported all over downtown. Drivers reported Locust Street ran like a river, which forced city officials to close that one-way artery and temporarily turn Elm Street — another one-way street — into a two-way street

“We’ve got flooding all over downtown,” Denton city spokesman John Cabrales said about 6:40 p.m. “We’ve done a lot of high-water rescues and quite a few of them are taking place as we speak.”

The storm ripped a hole in the roof of the Villa Grande restaurant east of Denton on U.S. Highway 380 about 2:30 p.m., causing employees and customers to run for cover, manager David Gonzalez said.

“The windows all broke, and the customers ran into the kitchen,” Gonzalez said.

Amid the flooding, a fire was reported at Denton City Hall on East McKinney Street about 6:30 p.m., he said.

Officials didn’t immediately know the cause or exact location.

“I have one unconfirmed report it was in council chambers,” Cabrales said. “I have another unconfirmed report that it was generators outside of City Hall that caught fire.”

An employee at the scene said everyone inside the building escaped safely, Cabrales said.

Denton, Argyle and Justin were the worst hit in the county, said Jody Gonzalez, Denton County’s emergency manager.

Pilot Point also experienced heavy rain that forced the Pilot Point Care Center to evacuate its building.

Neal Mays, administrator at the nursing home, said 59 residents were moved to temporary shelter because of flooding in the center of the building.

DMN/Tom Fox

Oil rig workers Shane Richard­son, left, and Phillip Meshell wait Tues­day for a rescue team to save them from about 5 feet of water that overtook the road while they were trying to leave near Flo­rence and Blair Roads in west Argyle. The two were stranded for two hours.

“Everything is under control; nobody is hurt and the residents are safe,” Mays said.

The residents were moved to the town senior center and to the Knights of Columbus Hall, he said.

Jody Gonzalez said the rain also caused county officials to evacuate the Hickory Creek Mobile Home Park on South Teasley Lane.

Tom Reedy, spokesman for the Denton County Sheriff’s Office, said the county received numerous reports of high water rescues from all over the county.

Denton resident Kevin McCormack said he noticed that a two-story house that was under construction on Pockrus Paige Road collapsed, presumably because of the wind.

“The wind pushed it from west to east when the storm came in and shoved it into the front yard,” said McCormack, noting that the house was pretty well along in its construction. “The top gable of the house is now resting on the curb.”

While the storm’s destructive force caused other damage in the area, McCormack said the rain, which was more than he had seen in a long time, was much needed.

“The lakes are so low,” he said. “We take water for granted so badly.”

McCormack said he measured around 4 1/2 inches at his home, where the streets were filling with muddy water.

“My yard is in the drainage,” he said.

The late-afternoon rain that caused severe flash flooding followed an earlier storm band that brought high wind, at least one tornado and heavy rain, causing some property damage, in eastern Denton County on Tuesday afternoon.

At Aubrey Elementary School, six ceiling tiles collapsed into a classroom after a drainpipe broke in the storm, Principal Joe Masson said. No one was hurt.

Because of a tornado warning, the children were in the hallway already, he said.

It caused minor water damage, but he expected it to be cleaned up in time for school today.

Storm watchers were reporting seeing some cloud rotation, and one tornado was reported to have touched down near FM1385 and FM455 about 2:45 p.m., but no damage had been reported from that sighting.

Staff writers Donna Fielder, Lowell Brown, Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe and Sarah Chacko contributed to this report.

MATTHEW ZABEL can be reached at 940-566-6884. His e-mail address is mzabel@dentonrc.com .