Severe storms hit southeast Texas on Thursday for the second time in a month, killing at least four people and cutting power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area, US media reported.
Authorities urged residents to stay off the roads as many have become impassable. Traffic lights are likely to be out for the rest of the night.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire said in an evening briefing:
Stay at home tonight. Do not go to work tomorrow, unless you’re an essential worker. Stay home, take care of your children. Our first responders will be working around the clock.
The mayor said four people died during the severe weather. Officials said at least two people died when trees fell and another died when strong winds snapped a crane.
Trees and power lines fell across the region. Whitmire said wind speeds reached 100 miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour) ‘and in some places there were tornadoes’. The powerful gusts were reminiscent of Hurricane Ike, which hit the city in 2008.
Hundreds of windows shattered in downtown hotels and office buildings, glass studded the streets, and the state deployed Department of Public Safety officers to secure the area. Whitmire said:
Downtown is a mess.
At Minute Maid Park Stadium, where the Houston Astros play, the retractable roof was closed because of the storm. But the wind was so strong that rain still pelted the stadium. Puddles formed on the warning track on the field, but the game against the Oakland Athletics went on anyway.
The Houston Independent School District cancelled classes Friday for about 400,000 students at all of its 274 campuses.
The severe storms passed quickly, but flood warnings remained in place for Houston and areas east of it. The ferocious storms spilled over into neighbouring Louisiana and left more than 215,000 people without power.
Two major Houston airports briefly suspended flights. Bush Intercontinental Airport recorded sustained winds of up to 60 mph (96 km/h).
According to the website poweroutage.us, about 900,000 people are without power in Harris County, which includes Houston. The county is home to more than 4.7 million people.
The problems spread to urban suburbs, and emergency officials in neighbouring Montgomery County called the damage to power lines catastrophic. Severe storms hit the region in the first week of May, leading to numerous rescues of people trapped underwater, including from the roofs of flooded homes.
