Kenny Beck surveyed the damage Tuesday to his family’s two-story home after at least two tornadoes tore through the Houston area, damaging over 100 homes at the start of a busy Thanksgiving travel week that has Americans closely eyeing the weather.
“Half my roof on the back is gone,” Beck, 46, said as workers cleared large tree branches and other debris from around nearby houses in the suburb of Cypress. “We’ve lost a lot of ceiling because of the rain. Our garage door got sucked in.”
No injuries were reported from Monday’s storm but it uprooted trees, downed power lines and scattered debris throughout some neighborhoods northwest of Houston. The National Weather Service on Tuesday had confirmed at least two tornadoes, one in Cypress with winds up to 105 mph (168 kph) and another around the community of Klein with winds up to 115 mph (185 kph).
Beck said that while repairs are being made, his family will have to move out of the home where they’ve lived and shared many moments and memories with family and friends over the past 20 years.
“I’m just hoping that here in a couple of months, we can get back in and we can start making more of those memories,” Beck said.
Meanwhile, multiple rounds of storms and showers were expected in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. The storm system was expected to move to the Northeast by Tuesday night, with another one in the forecast in the Pacific Northwest.
Even though the official start of winter is nearly a month away, a wintry storm was developing in the northern part of the country, with snow falling in North Dakota.
“That’s impacting North Dakota, Minnesota, including Minneapolis, and then portions of the northern Great Lakes,” said weather service meteorologist Marc Chenard in College Park, Maryland. He said snowfall was expected into Wednesday.
As much as 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow had fallen by late Tuesday afternoon in parts of North Dakota and South Dakota, according to the National Weather Service. In North Dakota, officials closed parts of Interstate 94 and Interstate 29 due to ice, low visibility and multiple accidents.
The holiday itself was shaping up to be dry, cold and breezy for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday in New York. But parts of western New York and northern Michigan are expected to see lake-effect snow Wednesday through Friday.
“It’s pretty narrow bands, but they’ll be some significant snowfall accumulations,” Chenard said. More winter weather could arrive in the central and northern parts of the country over the weekend.
In Texas, some people hunkered down in their homes and hid in closets during the storm earlier in the week. More than 20,000 customers were without power at one point Monday.
Beck said his 13-year-old son was home alone when the severe weather hit. He said his son hid in the closet and wasn’t hurt but was still shaken up on Tuesday. The boy told his father he could feel the house shake and hear the wind howl as things fell and broke.
“I think he’s still kind of processing it,” said Beck, who works as a teacher. “I think he understands the fact that him being safe was the most important thing and that he knows what to do in the moment, which is what makes me proud as a parent.”
In the Houston suburb of Spring, where severe weather damaged multiple homes, workers could be seen in one subdivision on Tuesday afternoon repairing roofs and cutting down damaged trees.
Sam Parker, owner of Texas Advantage Roofing, said he was working in the subdivision on Monday when he saw a tornado.
“I waited for it to pass,” he said. “I saw a lot of debris flying around.”
Parker said many homes had roof damage while others had more severe structural damage.
“It’s very catastrophic for these homeowners out here,” Parker said.
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Associated Press reporters Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Julie Walker in New York City, Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this report.
