Montgomery County is working on its storm recovery efforts after an EF3 tornado touched down there over the weekend. Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough told KTRH, "We had plenty of damage. 302 damaged homes is our internal estimate."
He says that 32 of those homes were completely flattened. He also says 7 people had to be rescued from a car, but thankfully they were not injured. Keough says there were no life-threatening injuries from the storm reported in Montgomery County.
The National Weather Service has now confirmed that there were six tornadoes that touched down on Saturday. Winds from two of those twisters were EF-3, which could be as strong as 165 miles per hour.
One person was killed, and as many as 14 were injured after multiple tornadoes moved into the Houston area on Saturday, bringing extremely strong winds resulting in extensive damage. The first tornado came about at 10:45 am, after dark clouds moved in and residents of the Katy area noticed a funnel cloud on the ground, shooting debris up into the air. It was apparently moving to the north.
About ten minutes later, a tornado was reported by someone in the Cypress area to the north, along Highway 290 at Spring-Cypress Road. Then, about 12:10 pm, at least one tornado was reported far to the northeast in East Montgomery County, near Porter Heights, where as many as 100 homes were damaged as the storm ravaged the area, according to Montgomery County Sheriff's Deputy Chief of Staff Jason Smith, who added that two people were sent to hospitals.
A total of ten were injured in Montgomery County, but none were said to be in critical condition. Then, after 1 pm, tornadoes ripped through Brazoria County, south of Houston, resulting in one death. A Brazoria County Sheriff's spokesman said there were "multiple touchdown points for the twister," meaning it would pull up off the ground and drop to the surface elsewhere a minute or two later. Some of the strongest winds reported were in a stretch of the county between Hillcrest Village and Liverpool, south of Alvin.
Damage was said to be extensive there, and in the Alvin-Pearland area, with RVs upended and some homes severely damaged, others completely destroyed -- but many homes almost untouched by the tornadoes.
One person was killed near the City of Manvel, along Highway 6 southwest of its intersection with Highway 288, according to Manvel Mayor Dan Davis Jr., and there was extensive damage, with some homes completely destroyed.
And in the same area, this time in Galveston County in the Dickinson area, a tornado touched down east of Dickinson High School, with some damage reported. Weather Service observers say this tornado may be the same as the one that caused damage in Brazoria County, but for now, the agency says it will treat it as a separate tornado.
Then by 3 pm, witnesses said they saw a twister near the City of Winnie, not far from the Gulf Coast in Chambers County, flipping trucks and downing utility poles, tearing up a few buildings. Damage in that area southeast of Houston reportedly caused county officials to close down Highway 24 (which runs parallel to Interstate 10) for a day or two to assess damage, according to Sheriff Brian Hawthorne's office.
Galveston County Judge Mark Henry told KTRH that these storms resulted in Bolivar Peninsula losing power for over 24 hours, but he expects power restoration to be completed there by the end of today.