Death toll rises to 7 in storm-hit Houston – Xinhua

Tornado-struck downtown Houston was at the center of the devastation with broken glass from high-rise buildings strewn across the streets.

HOUSTON, May 17 (Xinhua) — The death toll from the destructive storms that hit Houston Thursday night has risen to at least seven, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Friday evening.

An EF-1 tornado was confirmed near Cypress, northwest of the fourth largest city in the United States, with straight-line winds gusting to 100 mph, and tore through the city center, causing widespread considerable damage, the United States National Weather Service announced Friday.

In east Houston, a 60-year-old man who lost power in the storm went to his truck to hook up his oxygen tank. He was found dead Friday morning, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on social media. The county includes most of Houston.

In northwest Houston, a 57-year-old man died trying to move a utility pole during the storm, while an 85-year-old woman and her pet were killed in a house fire mobile caused by lightning.

The fourth, a man, was working on a construction project and was sitting in a cement truck when a portable crane fell due to high winds.

At least three deaths were linked to fallen trees, including a mother of four in Houston who died inside a vehicle in her driveway after a tree crushed it.

Two high school students were injured when their school bus got stuck during Thursday’s deadly storm, said the Houston Independent School District, the largest district in Texas and the eighth largest in the United States.

As many as 136 schools in the public school system were without power around midday (1700 GMT) Friday, said the district, which operates 274 schools in total.

As of Friday morning, more than 700,000 people in the Houston area were still without power, according to the latest update from CenterPoint Energy, which provides electricity to the region.

More than 920,000 customers lost power at the peak of the outages, according to CenterPoint Energy, noting that high winds caused “significant damage” to its infrastructure across the city.

Tornado-struck downtown Houston was at the center of the devastation with broken glass from high-rise buildings strewn across the streets. Many roads remain closed as crews worked to clean up the damage Friday.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a joint news conference Friday that recovery would likely take weeks, not days.

The mayor signed a local state of disaster declaration for the city on Friday, calling the “devastation” “significant.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also announced Friday that he had amended a disaster declaration he issued following the storms that hit Houston in April, as part of the state’s emergency response .

Earlier this month, several rounds of storms caused deadly flooding in East Texas, including the Houston area, forcing evacuations and school closures.■