HOUSTON — Fast-moving storms ripped through southeast Texas on Thursday for the second time this month, killing at least four people, blowing out windows of high-rise buildings, toppling trees and knocking out power to more than 850,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area. .
Authorities asked residents to stay off the roads as many of them were impassable and traffic lights were expected to be out for most of the night.
“Stay home tonight. Don’t go to work tomorrow unless you are an essential worker. Stay home, take care of your kids,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said at an evening briefing. “Our first responders will work 24 hours a day.”
The mayor said four people died during the bad weather. At least two of the deaths were caused by falling trees and another occurred when a crane toppled over in high winds, authorities said.
Streets were flooded and trees and power lines fell across the region. Whitmire said wind speeds reached 100 mph, “with some twists and turns.” He said the strong gusts were reminiscent of 2008’s Hurricane Ike, which hit the city.
Hundreds of windows were broken in downtown hotels and office buildings, with glass strewn across the streets below, and the state was sending Department of Public Safety agents to secure the area.
“Downtown is a mess,” Whitmire said.
There was a backlog of 911 calls that first responders were working on, he added.
The Houston Independent School District canceled classes on Friday for about 400,000 students across all of its 274 campuses.
The storm system moved quickly, but flood watches and warnings remained in Houston and areas to the east. The ferocious storms hit neighboring Louisiana and left more than 170,000 customers without power.
Flights were briefly suspended at Houston’s two main airports. Sustained winds of up to 60 mph (96 km/h) were recorded at Bush Intercontinental Airport.
About 855,000 customers were without power in and around Harris County, which contains Houston, according to poweroutage.us. The county is home to more than 4.7 million people.
The problems extended to the city’s suburbs, with emergency authorities in neighboring Montgomery County describing damage to transmission lines as “catastrophic” and warning that power could be affected for days.
Severe storms hit the region during the first week of May, leading to numerous high-water rescues, including some from the roofs of flooded homes.
—Baumann reported from Bellingham, Washington, and Weber from Los Angeles.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
