Strong thunderstorms that brought heavy rain and gusting winds — and perhaps a tornado — knocked power for thousands of Houston homes and businesses Tuesday.
As of 12:30 p.m., about 6,100 Centerpoint Energy customers were without power. As a heavy band of storms whacked Houston from the west between 8 and 10 a.m., outages peaked at more than 25,000, the utility said.
Before dawn on Tuesday, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for parts of Wharton, Brazoria, Harris and Fort Bend counties. Initial reports suggest Fort Bend County got hit the hardest; Centerpoint published photographs from crews in the field depicting uprooted trees, torn roofs and destroyed electrical equipment.
Wendy Wong, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the agency has crews out to Van Vleck, Wharton and Fort Bend County to survey damage there and determine whether a tornado touched down, as some residents have reported.
“And if there was, we want to know the size and intensity as well,” Wong added.
To check outages in your neighborhood, visit Centerpoint’s outage tracker.
This article appears in Feb 9-15, 2017.
