Power expected to be restored to areas hardest hit by deadly Houston storm

Houston-area residents hit by last week’s deadly storms that left at least seven dead were finally getting some good news as officials said they expected power to be restored by here Sunday evening for a majority of the hundreds of thousands of people still in the dark and without air conditioning in the middle. hot and humid weather.

Widespread destruction from Thursday’s storms paralyzed much of Houston. Thunderstorms and hurricane-force winds devastated the city, reducing businesses and other structures to piles of debris, uprooting trees and shattering glass from downtown skyscrapers. A tornado also touched down near Cypress, a northwest suburb of Houston.

More than 352,000 homes and businesses in Texas remained without power as of Sunday morning, most of them in the Houston area.

“It’s a madhouse out here,” said Cypress resident Hallie O’Bannon. “You know we have no power. No hot water. It was really crazy.

In one of five cooling centers for people still without power in their homes, residents took shelter from the heat at a community center in the Cloverleaf neighborhood.

Carolina Sierra and her 6-year-old son Derek enjoyed the air conditioning for a few hours on Sunday. She said they had been without power since Thursday’s storm and their home was sweltering.

Derek passed the time coloring a picture of a dragon while his mother charged her cell phone and a portable light that they planned to use Sunday evening if the power still wasn’t restored. Sierra, 38, said she gives her son several baths to try to keep him cool, but he tosses and turns at night and has trouble sleeping.

“We are desperate. We barely sleep at night because of the heat,” Sierra said.

Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia stood outside the center on Sunday, helping load water and ice onto vehicles while offering words of encouragement to residents still waiting for the power is restored.

“We are seeing some recovery. But we can’t see any fast enough,” Garcia said.

Help was also on the way in the form of disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Small Business Administration loans, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said. the highest elected official in the county where Houston is located. The federal aid, which can help fund temporary housing and repairs, will help residents affected by last week’s storms as well as flooding caused by heavy rains in late April and early May in parts of Houston, Harris County and several counties north of Houston.

CenterPoint Energy said it expects about 80% of affected customers in the Houston area to have service restored by Sunday evening. Hidalgo said 90% of customers could be restored by Wednesday.

Officials feared that high-voltage transmission towers destroyed by high winds would significantly prolong power restoration efforts.

“They were able to go around and around these destroyed towers thanks to new technology. This is great news,” Hidalgo said.

But Hidalgo warned residents that if their home’s equipment is damaged, they won’t have power until residents make repairs.

More than 4,600 customers remained without power Sunday morning in Louisiana, which was also hit by high winds and a suspected tornado.

CenterPoint Energy said 2,000 employees and more than 5,000 contractors were working in the Houston area to restore power.

“We understand that the warmer temperatures we are experiencing in Houston and surrounding communities make it even more important to restore lighting and air conditioning,” said Lynnae Wilson, CenterPoint’s senior vice president of electrical operations, in a statement.

Residents cheered as the lights and air conditioning came on at the eight-story Houston Heights Tower, a senior housing facility, Sunday morning. The nearly 200 residents had been living on backup electricity since Thursday evening, with generators providing enough power to run just one of the building’s elevators and a handful of fans in the community room, leaving the apartments in the dark .

Volunteers and city workers ensured residents received a constant supply of water, food and essentials like toilet paper.

“It just shows how people come together,” said 72-year-old resident Joseph Torregrossa, fighting back tears.

The National Weather Service said in a post on the social media site X that residents should expect “sunny, warm and increasingly humid days” in the Houston area. High temperatures of around 90 degrees (32 Celsius) were expected this week, with heat indexes likely approaching 102 degrees (39 Celsius) by midweek.

Houston-area school districts canceled classes for more than 400,000 students Friday. The Houston Independent School District, the state’s largest, said power had been restored to nearly 200 campuses and those schools would be open Monday. But 77 other campuses remained without power.

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Associated Press reporter Mark Vancleave contributed to this report.

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