Texas Power Outage: 360,000 Homes Without Power Again After Severe Storms
Texas has recently been battered by heavy rainfall and strong winds brought about by severe storms. As expected, this resulted in massive power outages all over the Lone Star State, with over 360,000 homes and businesses now without power. The hardest hit is the Houston area.
The USA TODAY power outage tracker is tracking 14.8 million residents and it found that Harris County, which is where Houston is, had the largest number of power outages with 200,893. It is followed by Chambers County with 24,695, and then by Austin County with 18,611, and Fort Bend County with 15,296.
The weather that has been causing these power outages is being spurned on by the heat as the state is looking to open cooling centers this weekend.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service is warning of more rain and along the Gulf of Mexico, including in the Florida Panhandle and parts of southern Georgia and Alabama. There is a big risk of flash floods in the Gulf Coast region because of the saturated soil, as well as high temperatures, especially in southern Texas and South Florida.
Storm chances are seen to ease over the weekend but the heat index is expected to rise thanks to the humidity brought after the rains. South Florida will expect temperatures in the 90s while southern Texas is expected to see heat reach the mid-100s and heat indices upwards of 110 degrees near Corpus Christi.
Texas Storms Cause 7 Dead and Severe Power Outage in Houston
In Houston, the city hit the hardest by the storms, seven more people have reportedly died while thousands are still without any electricity. Officials are warning that parts of the city could be affected by these power outages for weeks, according to CBS News.
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Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez stated that three of the deaths were confirmed to be weather-related. This included a 57-year-old man who died while trying to move a downed electrical pole. Meanwhile, an 85-year-old woman died when a lightning strike sparked a fire and burned down her trailer, while a 60-year-old man was found dead after he "went out to his truck to plug his oxygen tank due to loss of power."
Meanwhile, the clean-up efforts are hitting various snags as rising temperatures and smog warnings are complicating clean-ups and placing residents without power at risk.
Texas Storm's Devastation Caught All Over Social Media
The incidents that happened during the Texas storms have been captured all over social media, from a downed crane that fell on a cement truck, killing a man, to glass windows being shattered by the strong winds to a townhouse falling down due to the storm.
According to Fox Weather, the storm even affected Minute Maid Park where the Houston Astros were playing. Wind and water were blowing into the building, with gusts reaching speeds of over 70 mph. However, overall, it did not seem to affect the play of the Astros baseball game.
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This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Rick Martin
WATCH: Hundreds of thousands without power in Houston days after deadly wind storm - NBC News