A woman looks at the damage caused by fallen bricks in the aftermath of a severe thunderstorm Friday in Houston
HOUSTON, May 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least seven people were killed in the Houston area as a destructive complex of storms with winds up to 100 mph tore through the area, triggering power outages that could stretch on for weeks amid soaring temperatures.
The death toll rose Friday evening from the four fatalities officials reported earlier in the day.
More than 900,000 homes and businesses lost power in Houston’s Harris County during the peak of the storm’s violent winds, and nearly 600,000 remained in the dark Friday evening, according to PowerOutage.us.
“For some folks, the luckier ones, (power restoration) might be days, not hours. For many, many people, it’s going to be weeks and not days,” Harris County Judge Lina Hildago said in a Friday news briefing.
Hidalgo said the weeks-long restoration timeframe was for homes and businesses tied into the 10 steel power transmission towers downed in the state, seven of which were in Harris County.
It’s unclear which areas are tied into the transmission lines, she said.
It’s a troubling timeframe for power restoration, especially as high temperatures reach the 90s through the weekend and beyond. The heat index, which measures what the body actually feels, could hit the triple-digits by next week, raising health risks from weather’s deadliest threat. The City of Houston planned to activate cooling centers for residents on Friday, officials said in a news release.
Fallen trees appear to have caused two of the reporteddeaths, and a crane accident caused another, Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel Peña said in a news conference.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office on Friday evening identified three others in the county who died from the storm. One man collapsed while attempting to move a downed electrical pole, and a woman died after lightning struck the trailer she was inside and caused a fire, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a post on X Friday.
Gonzales said another victim who had lost power reportedly went out to his truck to plug in his oxygen tank. “He was found unresponsive this morning and pronounced deceased at the scene,” the sheriff said Friday, adding the additional deaths occurred in unincorporated Harris County.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire, who signed a local state of disaster declaration for the city on Friday, toured the downtown area and said the “devastation is significant.”
“We urge everyone to stay away from the area for your safety and to allow public works personnel to do their vital jobs,” Whitmire said. — NNN-AGENCIES