Aftermath of destructive Houston storm: City asks Houstonians to avoid parts of downtown while crews clean up debris

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Parts of downtown Houston were still blocked Monday in what Mayor John Whitmire calls an “exclusion zone.”

The closure is for sidewalk cleaning and repairs after windows were blown out during Thursday’s destructive storm.

A three-by-three block section — from Louisiana Street to Travis Street and McKinney Street to Polk Street — remained closed as crews cleaned up broken glass and other debris left by the storm.

This includes the area where the Wells Fargo Plaza, the Kinder Morgan building and a few other skyscrapers had their windows blown out.

A Downtown District spokesperson said they surveyed 17 building owners or managers over the weekend and learned that replacing the windows is expected to take months. More than 2,500 windows or skylights were lost or damaged during the storm.

Crews boarded up most of the windows and planned to finish them by Wednesday.

Also closed was Franklin’s Travis in Commerce, where the Conejo Malo bar suffered a partial collapse of its building. Dramatic surveillance video shows a brick wall of the building collapse and push a car into the nearby parking lot.

Orange city tags were placed on the front door of the building. ABC13 reached out to the City of Houston Public Works Department to learn more about what happened next.

Besides cleaning, the other big problem facing hundreds of thousands of people is power outages.

SEE ALSO: Deadly windstorm in Houston estimated to cause $5 billion to $7 billion in damage, AccuWeather tells ABC13

The Houston Fire Department said it responded to 18 heat-related calls Sunday. Whitmire said they are studying at least one assisted living center on the North Side, where residents, many of whom are elderly or disabled, have been left to fend for themselves during power outages.

“We found in several locations, at Independence Hall on Burress Street, that residents had been abandoned by management Thursday night. They had no energy. They had no food. Their insulin was destroyed,” Whitmire said.

“Because their beds are electronic, people who have needed dialysis and have no way to get to their dialysis (or) make phone calls, because their phones are dead because we have no way to recharge it,” said Independence Hall resident Rosalie Juarez. said.

At least one person at that complex was taken to the hospital for a dialysis-related issue, and another was taken to the hospital for dehydration.

Power came back to them on Monday morning.

It’s an affordable housing complex, which is why the city is looking into financing it. ABC13 is working to contact building managers.