Another round of storms and strong winds moved east across Texas today, with three radar-confirmed tornadoes damaging homes and causing injuries in the Houston area.
It's the second day of turbulent weather in the state, where at least three people died yesterday in flood waters in central Texas. The body of a man who was swept away yesterday in the Austin area was found today, but another is still missing.
As the storms moved east, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Blood said a tornado went through Brazoria County near Alvin about 5 am today, injuring at least two people and damaging about 25 mobile homes in the community that's 48 kilometers south of Houston.
Thirty minutes later, a tornado hit the Houston suburb of Friendswood, collapsing the roof of one home. No one was injured because residents were not home, officials said.
Another 30 or so homes had minor damage. And about 7 am today, between 10 and 30 homes were damaged by a tornado in a subdivision in eastern Harris County, Blood said.
In the Houston area, up to 8 inches of rain have fallen since yesterday night, and will continue to fall until early today afternoon, Blood said. That's resulted in flooded streets, which led officials to suspend public light-rail and bus transportation in the morning; limited rail service was restored around 11 am.
The Houston Fire Department said it had responded to more than 90 water rescues by midmorning today.
"A lot of the feeder roads are under water and we have some bayous that are out of their banks, contributing to the flooding around the city," Blood said.
Utilities in East Texas said 44,000 customers were without power. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for areas near Houston, Galveston, Bryan, College Station, Tyler and Texarkana until today afternoon.
The storms and suspected tornadoes, which forecasters say were caused by an upper-level disturbance from Mexico, socked an already-sodden swath of Texas that was still drying out from the remnants of Hurricane Patricia. Austin, San Antonio and surrounding areas were first hit yesterday.
Three people died when they were swept away by flood waters; a woman is still missing after waters reached her home in the Austin area.
The third death was confirmed today morning, when officials found the body of a man whose vehicle was swept away yesterday southeast of Austin, Travis County Emergency Services spokeswoman Lisa Block.
