Houston storms on May 28: Harris County hit by more severe weather

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Less than two weeks after the Houston area was hit with an unusual weather event, a somewhat “typical” southeast Texas weather system has hit the Houston area.

On Tuesday, strong winds, hail and rain hit the region. Wind gusts of up to 75 mph were recorded at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and golf ball-sized hail was also spotted.

One person was killed during the storms in Montgomery County. Investigators said a 16-year-old who was inside a house under construction when it collapsed did not survive.

In Harris County, Judge Lina Hidalgo said the derecho that hit the Houston area on May 16 was unusual while what happened on Tuesday, May 28, was more of a “typical” weather event for the South. east of Texas, common at this time of year.

Conditions are expected to remain favorable for severe thunderstorms over the next few days, she said, although it is difficult to predict whether anything serious will happen.

RELATED: Photos and videos show what it looked like as strong storms moved through Southeast Texas

Widespread power outages that had just been restored were once again at the forefront of concerns for those facing loss of electricity. Some residents who had to throw away food on May 16 found themselves in the same situation again.

Hidalgo said CenterPoint is still assessing the outages, but it’s nowhere near what the region faced a few weeks ago.

Officials said 1,800 of the 4,000 mutual aid teams that were there to help with the derecho turned around to return to help the Houston area get the lights back on.

For reference, the May 16 event knocked out power to nearly 1 million CenterPoint customers in the Houston area, while the May 28 event peaked at just over 300,000 customers.

According to Hidalgo, people who suffered property damage during Tuesday’s storm are eligible for assistance from FEMA. She said it’s part of the ongoing climate disaster, which includes flooding earlier this month and Storm Derecho on May 16.

For assistance, call 211 to be directed to FEMA or call them directly at 800-621-FEMA. A word of warning, however, is that if you suffered damage on Tuesday and also suffered damage during the May 16 storm and FEMA is still reviewing your application, do not file a new request for the storm of May 28. Instead, go to your existing app and update it.

As Houstonians recovered from the May 16 storms, debris was deposited near the street. Now, this debris could have moved into the middle of the street, creating dangerous driving conditions.

Crews were working to collect debris and will continue their work over the coming weeks.

You are encouraged to call 311 if you have a debris problem.

RELATED: Storm debris collection continues on Memorial Day; neighborhood depositories accept deposits

Hidalgo said more than a dozen polling places lost power Tuesday. Teneshia Hudspeth, Harris County Clerk, informed the state of the outages and the disruption they caused to voters.

Hudspeth was scheduled to provide an update Tuesday evening around 7:30 p.m.

Visit HarrisVotes.org to see which locations were affected.