Where To Find Help After Severe Storms Bring Power Outages on Texas Election Day
On this Texas Election Day, flash flooding, damaging winds and hail are expected to continue in North, East and Central Texas where several tornadoes reportedly touched down and hundreds of thousands of residents have lost power to their homes and businesses.
Many North Texas schools have closed or delayed opening, and the Dallas County Elections Office says numerous polling locations are experiencing power problems caused by storms but voting is occurring at many other poll locations.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins issued a disaster declaration on Tuesday morning and various government offices in North Texas are closed for the day.
More than 750,000 customers throughout Texas were without power at mid-day Tuesday and that number is continuing to climb, according to PowerOutage.us. More than half of the outages are in Dallas County.
Officials are urging residents to use caution around any storm, damage and debris. If you see a downed power line, call 911 immediately.
The severe weather is expected to stick around the area through mid-week and power outages may last multiple days.
Across the state, Texans are voting Tuesday in runoff races which will determine party nominees for the November election.
Communities expected to see flooding this week include: Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Plano, Garland, Irving, Grand Prairie, Mesquite, McKinney, Carrollton, Frisco, Denton, Richardson, Lewisville, Allen, Flower Mound, Rowlett, Euless and Desoto, according to alerts from The Weather Channel and the National Weather Service in Fort Worth/Dallas.
Two violent thunderstorms roared into the Dallas area barely 12 hours apart on Monday, the Memorial Day holiday, and early morning Tuesday, unleashing baseball-sized hail and damaging winds.
The severe weather is pushing to the south and east and could impact Austin and Houston by Tuesday evening. The National Weather Service has received reports of downed trees and damaged building. The weather service’s Storm Prediction Center has drawn a Level 3 out of 5 Enhanced risk of severe weather over much of central and southeastern portions of the state. The risk of storms has somewhat waned in Dallas, the risk of significant wind and hail, including gusts over 75 mph, is climbing elsewhere in the state.
Information sites that may be useful this week in Texas include:
