Downtown Houston experienced significant damage on Thursday evening, 16 May with destructive storms. Numerous high-rise buildings suffered blown-out windows and scattered debris across the streets below.
Witnesses described the chaos, with one person who had been on the 25th floor of a high-rise reported, “We could literally feel the building shake. And then the ceiling tile was coming down.” ABC13 Reporter Courtney Carpenter surveyed the damage on Friday morning, noting glass, tree limbs, and insulation littering the ground at Louisiana and McKinney Streets.
Street lights and signs dangled from wires, and windows were blown out in the Wells Fargo Tower and several other high-rises. The downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel was affected, with guests and staff running for cover as rain and debris fell into the atrium. A smaller building in the area lost an entire brick wall, leaving bricks and exposed wiring in an adjacent parking lot. It is unclear if anyone was inside when the storm struck.
The storm hit downtown just after 6 p.m. on 16 May, affecting people leaving work and those at the Houston Astros game at Minute Maid Park. Mayor John Whitmire has asked downtown businesses to allow employees to work from home on Friday, 17 May to ensure safety and facilitate cleanup efforts.
Source: ABC13
Learn more about this story at ABC13 Houston.