Weather-weary Texas hit again by powerful storm and high winds that kill one person and cause widespread damage

Power outages remained widespread Wednesday in storm-hit Texas, a day after another blast of severe weather flooded streets, uprooted trees and ripped off roofs. Authorities said a teenager died at a construction site while working on a collapsed home.

Tuesday’s severe weather, which at one point left more than 1 million customers without power, followed deadly storms, some of which spawned tornadoes, across the United States over the long Memorial Day weekend. , which killed 24 people in seven states.

The flooding and damage in Houston came just weeks after the area was hit by a weather event known as a derecho, a widespread, long-lasting wind storm associated with a band of fast-moving downpours or thunderstorms. That storm left eight dead and left hundreds of thousands of customers without power.

“Many people are left without electricity again. We just passed the derecho a couple of weeks ago, which was extremely devastating and many are still trying to recover,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the county where Houston is located, in a video posted on social media on Tuesday night.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell was scheduled to travel Wednesday to Arkansas, where seven people died in the weekend storms, as the Biden administration continues to assess damage from the tornadoes.

The potential for heavy rain, localized flash flooding and severe weather will continue Wednesday in Oklahoma and Texas. Thunderstorms are forecast for Wednesday night and Thursday in eastern Montana, Wyoming and northeastern Colorado before moving into Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and northern Texas.

Tuesday’s power outages in the Dallas area led officials to extend voting by two hours in the state runoff elections after dozens of polling places lost power.

The city opened respite centers where residents could seek shelter and air conditioning after wind gusts of up to 80 mph (129 kph) caused extensive damage to homes. Local news images showed several houses without roofs, some of them damaged by trees torn from the ground by the winds. City crews planned to work around the clock this week to remove downed trees, according to a notice on the city website.

Posts on social media showed that winds pushed an American Airlines plane away from a gate at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

The airline said in a statement that the bad weather affected several parked and unoccupied planes. Nobody was hurt.

“Our maintenance team is conducting thorough inspections and will make any necessary repairs,” the statement read.

The airport said in an email to The Associated Press that about 500 flights were canceled due to the weather. Nearly 200 other flights were canceled at Dallas Love Field airport, according to the FlightAware website.

Cars trudged along flooded roads and more than 300,000 customers were without power in the Houston area, which includes parts still recovering from hurricane-force winds earlier this month.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that a 16-year-old boy was killed when a home under construction began to move and then collapsed during a storm in the Houston suburb of Magnolia. The teen was confirmed to be an employee of the construction company and was authorized to be on site, according to the statement.

Magnolia Fire Department Division Chief Jason Herrman said it was one of three homes under construction that collapsed.

There doesn’t seem to be much relief in sight.

The National Weather Service said the “very active, high-impact” weather pattern will continue across the central United States over the next few days.

Destructive storms over the weekend caused deaths in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia. Meanwhile, in the Midwest, an unusual weather phenomenon called a “gustnado” that looks like a small tornado brought some dramatic moments to a western Michigan lake over the weekend.

For more information on recent tornado reports, see The Associated Press Tornado Tracker.

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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press journalists across the country contributed to this report, including Paul J. Weber, Ken Miller, Jennifer McDermott, Sarah Brumfield, Kathy McCormack, Acacia Coronado, Jeffrey Collins, Bruce Schreiner, Julio Cortez, Valerie González and Mark Thiessen.