NEW ORLEANS— For the second time this month, severe thunderstorms hit southeastern Texas on Thursday. They killed at least four people, broke windows in high-rise buildings, knocked down trees, and cut power to nearly 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area.
Chief of Communications and Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Mary Benton, told the Associated Press in the evening that four people had died.
Multiple counties were warned of flash floods and severe thunderstorms, and the National Weather Service office in Houston said that damaging winds and even tornadoes could happen into the evening.
“If you’re in the path of this storm, get inside right now.” “Go to the bottom floor!” the NWS office said on the social network X.
There was flooding in the streets, and trees and power lines were down all over the area. KHOU-TV showed pictures of broken windows on an office building in downtown Houston. The street below was littered with broken glass.
People in the city were told to stay off the roads because many of them were impassable and traffic lights were not working.
Houston’s two main airports didn’t let flights go because of the weather. At Bush Intercontinental Airport, winds that didn’t stop topping 60 mph were recorded.
Poweroutage.us says that more than 870,000 people in and around Harris County, which includes Houston, were without power. More than 4.7 million people live in the county.
All 274 campuses in the Houston Independent School District were closed on Friday.
During the first week of May, the area was hit by heavy storms that required many high-water rescues, some of which were done from the roofs of flooded homes.
