Stormy Friday
Cleanup is underway after Friday’s storms, but the Houston area escaped the worst of it.
High winds from a line of storms that moved across southeast Texas overnight Friday caused property damage and power outages for tens of thousands in the region.
While there was scattered damage here — a tree crashed into a home in The Woodlands, a gas station canopy collapsed in southwest Houston and 66,000 people were briefly without power — the brunt of the weather hit outside of Texas.
The death toll from the storms stands at 11. A tornado embedded in the long line of thunderstorms killed three in Alabama. Three people in Louisiana died, including an elderly couple found near their demolished trailer. A man drowned in floodwaters in Oklahoma when he was overcome by rushing water as he got out of his stalled truck. And one person was killed in eastern Iowa after a semitrailer crashed just after midnight Saturday.
The storm also brought dangerous ice to parts of Texas. In Lubbock, two first responders were killed and another critically injured when they were hit by a vehicle while responding to the scene of a traffic accident in icy conditions. And Dallas police said a person died Friday night when a car flipped into the Five Mile Creek near downtown, but it wasn’t clear if that crash was weather-related.
In Houston, the Coast Guard was searching for a possible missing boater, but it was unclear whether there had been a weather-related incident.
At its peak in Houston, the storms’ winds left roughly 66,000 homes and businesses in Harris County without power, according to CenterPoint Energy figures. Entergy Texas, which services most counties north and east of Houston, said it had a peak of 19,000 outages.
Dan Reilly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service,
said the storms created downbursts with strong gusts of up to 60 mph that are responsible for much of the damage.
“You get these periodic downbursts and stronger winds pushing out with the wind,” said Reilly. “In a case like that, the wind damage tends to be laid out in one direction.”
Such bursts become “microbursts” when they are severe, but Reilly said there is no evidence yet that those occurred in the overnight storms. Reilly said the weather service also detected some rotating storms on the radar, which could indicate tornadoes touched down.
“We can’t confirm that at this point,” he said. One such storm was spotted
near Hobby Airport.
The weather service’s log of damage reports includes structural damage to a Buffalo Speedway gas station and downed trees in The Woodlands. One tree there crashed into a home on Drybrook Road, prompting the Spring Fire Department to respond for a reported gas leak.
Benjamin Bailey said he was watching television around 11 p.m. when the strong gust of wind thrashed outside. A few seconds later, a tree came crashing
through the roof and shook the entire house.
“The first thing we thought about was our baby,” Bailey said, adding that he, his wife and their 10month-old were all unharmed.
“I heard a big crashing sound, almost like the wind had really picked up,” he said. “Essentially, that’s when the tree came straight into our house, came through our kitchen, water pouring in everywhere — absolutely devastating.”
The wind was so strong, Bailey said, that before the tree fell he was already concerned it might rip the roof off his house. Spring firefighters were there within minutes, and neighbors and friends stopped by as well, Bailey said.
“This is the Houston area, so everybody helps out with each other in times like this,” he said.