Over 754,000 customers without power in Texas due to destructive storms

More than 600,000 customers without power in Texas due to destructive storms (Image: Reuters)

Over 754,000 homes and businesses in Texas, Kentucky, and other states in between were without power on May 28 due to storms that hit the area over the long Memorial Day holiday weekend, as per meteorologists and data from PowerOutage.us.

At least 21 people have died as a result of thunderstorms that produced tornadoes and swept across the Southern Plains and the Ozark Mountains in four different US states.

Over 540,000 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are without power due to outages at Texas power company Oncor, a division of California-based energy business Sempra Energy SRE.N, according to PowerOutage.us.

Oncor said it was "currently monitoring and responding to outages caused by thunderstorms producing large hail and wind gusts up 80 miles per hour (129-kilometer per hour) in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and surrounding areas".

Central and northern Texas face Tuesday’s most serious risk of severe weather. More storms are likely to develop throughout the afternoon. along with large hail, lightning, and wind gusts up to 80 mph. The National Weather Service predicts that there may also be a few tornadoes.

As per CNN, with over 600 reports of strong winds or hail across more than 20 states, including gusts above 75 mph and softball-sized hail, May 26 was the busiest severe weather day of the year thus far. Additionally, 26 tornado reports from 10 states were received. Storms toppled power lines, tossed cars, and reduced houses and businesses to piles of rubble.

PowerOutage.us reports that as a result of the same storm system moving across the East, more than 200,000 households and businesses in seven states were without power on May 27 night. With almost 90,000 outages, Kentucky experienced the highest number of power outages; nevertheless, there were also blackouts in Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, and Virginia.

The utility's power outage website stated that it could not estimate restoration times for many customers.

According to an article published by CNN, over the course of the holiday season, storms struck the central United States, resulting in the deaths of over twenty-two people—four of them children—across five states. Several communities are still dealing with the substantial loss of their businesses and homes.

Meteorologists predicted that sweltering heat will accompany the storms across portions of Texas as part of a heat wave that has been baking the South in recent days.

On May 28, Brewster County in western Texas, as well as the foothills of the Davis Mountains, are under a heat advisory. The National Weather Service reports that temperatures in the area could get as high as 110 degrees.