UPDATE: The National Weather Service will inspect tornado damage in the Houston area Tuesday. The twister damaged about 100 homes, but did not cause any deaths or injuries.
ORIGINAL: A tornado touched down in Northwest Harris County on Monday afternoon, downing trees, shredding light buildings and sheds, dropping debris on vehicles and knocking out power and traffic lights.
There were no reported injuries.
There have been residential area gas leaks reported in several locations, with Hazardous Materials crews working to turn off natural gas feeding broken pipes.
Hardest hit appeared to be the areas of Spring and Klein, where a storm moved through a little after 1:35, bringing strong winds and hail, but as the weather system moved northeast from the Cypress area, residents spotted a funnel cloud that tossed and shredded a light building near the Klein Fire Department's headquarters.
Worse hit, though, were subdivision residents nearby, where trees toppled in the super-strong winds, falling onto homes, garages, vehicles, yards and streets.
The Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said the tornado touched down along "a narrow tract leading up to Hooks Airport. Damage assessments" are underway.
Harris County Constable Precinct 4 Mark Herman called damage "significant," with a few reports of extensive destruction to property because of the strong winds and heavy rain that accompanied the storms.
Harris County Precinct 3 crews started removing debris from neighborhoods in the mid-afternoon.
CenterPoint Energy reported some downed power lines that affected many of their customers in the Spring area, but most of those outages were brought back online within an hour or two, the company said.
Two hours after the storm moved through, CenterPoint reported more than 8,000 customers without power, most of whom should see their electricity back on very soon.