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Wayward Air Force balloon shot from sky

While many Central Texans worried about damage and power outages from Saturday's violent weather, residents of Burnet County had their lights put out by a runaway radar balloon, which could only be stopped by being shot from the sky by lawmen using shotguns.The U.S. Air Force balloon, having floated about 300 miles from near the Texas-Mexico border, clipped trees and tore down power lines as it drifted over Burnet, County Commissioner Bill Neve said Monday."We started getting reports of the balloon about 7:15 a.m. Saturday, and we continued getting calls during the morning about power being knocked out all over the area," Neve said.The Aerostat balloon became untethered at about 4 a.m. Saturday, said Lt. Michael Meridith at Langley Air Force Base, Va., adding the Air Force tracked the balloon from Rio Grande City, where it began its unscheduled flight. By Larry Hutchinson
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