Houston distributes water as more than 300,000 people remain without power after devastating storms

The city of Houston on Saturday opened new distribution centers to distribute water as thousands of customers remained without power following severe storms responsible for the deaths of seven people in the region.

Houston reached a high of 91 degrees on Saturday as the city and Harris County recovered from tornadoes and 100 mph straight-line winds that struck without warning on Thursday.

Seven deaths — four in Houston and three in unincorporated Harris County — were attributed to the effects of the weather, including falling trees and a lightning-sparked fire.

About 350,000 customers in Harris County, where Houston is located, were without power as of 10:20 p.m. local time Saturday, according to poweroutage.us tracking site. At its peak, nearly 800,000 homes and businesses were without power following the storm.

“Our crews’ visual inspections and damage assessments of our infrastructure yesterday showed that we have a lot of hard work ahead of us in the coming days,” CenterPoint Energy’s Lynnae Wilson, the utility’s senior vice president of electrical business, said in a statement.

CenterPoint, the utility with the most outages, said Saturday night that it estimated about 80% of its customers impacted would have power restored until Sunday night.

Three schools were damaged, one by a tree that fell into a classroom, another by about 12 broken windows and one that knocked down a classroom wall, Houston Independent School District Superintendent Mike Miles said in a statement. Saturday.

Miles called the relatively few damaged buildings throughout the district “a blessing.” A decision will be made on Sunday whether there will be classes on Monday, and much will depend on the electricity situation, he said.

“Today and tomorrow will say a lot about the power in these schools,” Miles said.

About 90 of the district’s more than 270 schools do not have power, he said.

Houston faces another hot day ahead, with temperatures in the 80s and 90s next week.

“If you’re without power, and even if you’re not… be sure to practice thermal safety by staying hydrated, take frequent breaks if you’re working outside, and look before you lock up!” the National Weather Service said in a forecast discussion.

In other parts of the country, storms and severe weather are a concern.

The central and northern Plains were forecast to experience storms starting Sunday, affecting about 2 million people in Kansas, southern Nebraska and northern Oklahoma. The Kansas cities of Wichita and Topeka were among those that could see large hail and damaging winds.