"It was like a car hitting the house or an explosion. It shook that much.
"Ten minutes later I heard they had lost contact with the shuttle.
"I put the two facts together and called to say I had heard a boom.
"The boom I heard was the space shuttle breaking up but apparently the debris falling is being carried outside the Dallas area to a remote area east of here."
Terry Tawater, from Palestine, Texas, told BBC News Online that, at 8.01am, Texas time, his house began to rumble.
"The whole house was shaking and I immediately ran outside and the shuttle was flying extremely low.
"Almost as soon as I got outside it was gone and there were vapour trails filling the sky - it was unbelievable.
"We sometimes see the shuttle high in the sky late at night, but never anything like this.
"As soon as I got outside it was gone and there were vapour trails filling the sky - it was unbelievable."
Lieutenant Paul Peterson, of Nacogdoches Police, Dallas, heard the explosion over his police department.