By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press
CYPRESS, Texas (AP) — 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.
