Power outages could linger for days after storms batter Texas again, leaving 1 dead
By LEKAN OYEKANMI and KEN MILLER
Associated Press
HOUSTON (AP) — Power outages scattered across storm-weary Texas on Wednesday could linger into the weekend after storms flooded streets in Houston for the second time this month and ripped off roofs in Dallas, leaving a teenager dead and injuring others.
The teen was killed Tuesday at a construction site while working on a home that collapsed, and three people at a campground were shocked by a downed power line. The severe weather left more than 1 million homes and businesses without electricity at one point.
Electric utility Oncor said power in the Dallas area should be restored by Friday for most customers, but some outages will continue into the weekend. More than 1 million homes and businesses were without electricity across Texas at one point, but by Wednesday night, the lights had come back on for more than 75% of those customers.
Houston was flooded and damaged just weeks after a storm walloped the area, killing eight people. The 16-year-old worker was killed northeast of the city, in the suburb of Magnolia. He was a construction company employee, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said.
A 6-year-old boy and two others who were shocked by the downed power line at a campground north of Houston were in critical condition, authorities said.
Witnesses saw a 59-year-old man touch the line Tuesday, but investigators were trying to determine how the two others were shocked, Montgomery County Fire Marshal Jimmy Williams said Wednesday.
A couple driving during the storm in the Houston suburb of Spring missed a turn and then spotted a pickup truck submerged in a culvert.
Ashley Renee Young said her boyfriend, Robert Chance, grabbed a sledgehammer from his toolbox, broke the back window and pulled out the driver, who only suffered minor cuts from broken glass. They then bought the man a shirt from a nearby gas station before driving him home.
“I think we have lifelong friends now,” Young said.
The potential for heavy rains, localized flash flooding and severe weather continued Wednesday through Oklahoma and Texas. Thunderstorms were predicted late Wednesday and Thursday across eastern Montana and Wyoming and northeast Colorado before pushing into Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and northern Texas.
Tuesday’s power outages in the Dallas area prompted officials to extend voting by two hours in the state’s runoff elections after dozens of polling places lost electricity amid 80 mph winds (129 kph) that caused extensive damage.
Social media posts showed winds pushing an unoccupied American Airlines plane away from a gate at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. No one was injured, but the airport said about 500 flights were canceled because of the weather.
The National Weather Service said the “very active and highly impactful” weather pattern will continue in the central U.S. over the next several days.
Destructive storms over the Memorial Day weekend killed 24 people in seven states across the South, the deaths stretching from Texas to Virginia.
For more information on recent tornado reports, see The Associated Press Tornado Tracker.
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Miller reported from Edmond, Oklahoma. Associated Press journalists Paul J. Weber, John Seewer and Beatrice Dupuy contributed.
