Severe STORMS Leave 500,000+ Texas Homes and Businesses Without Power
Hundreds of thousands of Texans are without power, and many may be without it for several days after severe and fatal storms ripped through the state Tuesday and throughout the holiday weekend, leaving residents to pick up the pieces of destroyed homes and businesses in the unbearably hot heat.
According to PowerOutage.us, over 500,000 utility customers in Texas lost power on Tuesday night, including over 240,000 in Dallas County alone.
Hurricane-force winds blasted Houston and Dallas on Tuesday, flooding highways, uprooting trees and electrical lines, and reducing some buildings to shells of themselves. Since Saturday, at least eight people have died in the state as severe weather wreaked havoc on the region throughout Memorial Day weekend.
The extreme weather is just the latest in a string of severe storms that have pounded Texas in recent weeks, leaving inhabitants with little time to recuperate from one before the next hits.
Summerlike temperatures will subside in Texas this week after a blistering heat wave, but those without power or a reliable way to cool off may still face the risk of deadly heat stroke or heat exhaustion. The National Weather Service predicts that temperatures in eastern Texas will range from the mid-80s to the low 90s on Wednesday.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins cautioned residents to prepare for days without electricity after an area utility company reported substantial damage to its infrastructure. Oncor, the utility, published photographs of felled trees, twisted power lines, and crushed electricity poles.
According to Jenkins, widespread failures disrupted primary runoff polls in Dallas County on Tuesday, with more than a third of polling places going dark. Dallas County officials recommended checking on friends, family, and neighbors, especially the elderly. “Don’t move debris yet as there could be hidden downed power lines that could still be energized.”
According to CNN affiliate WFAA, Esmeralda Martinez, a resident of Carrollton, is currently searching through homes that have been reduced to piles of damp wreckage and jagged wooden beams. She and her family took refuge in a hallway as the storm ripped off the roof, destroying every room in her house and soaking their things.
Across the street, Javon Holloway and his grandmother are relieved their home was spared more catastrophic damage. The neighbors are happy that no one was injured. “Never take your house for granted. I’ll say that much. “Be thankful for what you have,” Holloway told WFAA.
Storms across north and central Texas are anticipated to remain until Wednesday morning, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. After a brief respite, strong storms will return to the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Thursday evening, posing a risk of large hail, damaging winds, and isolated flooding.
Houston Confronts Destruction, Déjà Vu
Houston fans are suffering a familiar feeling as they examine the fresh layer of wreckage left by Tuesday’s storms, only two weeks after a derecho and tornado bulldozed through the city, killing multiple people and knocking out power for almost 1 million homes and businesses.
CenterPoint Energy, a regional company, reported that over 300,000 households and businesses in the Houston area lost power during Tuesday’s storms, despite 99% of those outages being restored last week. As of 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, 120,000 of its customers remained in the dark.
The new extreme weather has also hampered some of the city’s ongoing rehabilitation from the mid-May storm, which covered streets in trees and debris, smashed skyscraper windows, and damaged structures.
That damage had not yet been fully repaired when Tuesday’s storms ripped through, scattering piles of debris that crews had been collecting from the streets and unleashing another shower of broken window glass on Downtown Houston.