A huge storm hit downtown Houston on the evening of May 16, 2024. Much of the damage was caused by high winds. The storm hit the Houston area around 7:00 in the evening. No one expected the storm to be as strong as it was.
Over one million people lost power, and wind speeds were over 100 miles per hour.
After the storm cleared I decided to see if I could safely make it downtown. The roads were very dark, and many of the streetlights did not have power. When I got to downtown, many of the streets were barricaded off by police.
One of the buildings that sustained the most visible damage was a bar called Conejo Malo. The bar is located on Travis Street near Commerce, by the Abraham Watkins building. Police shut down vehicular traffic on Travis Street. You can see the yellow police tape blocking off the building.
The brick wall came down and fell into the parking lot next door. A car was crushed under bricks.
The next afternoon I came back to see the damage during daylight. It rained intermittently during the day, but work crews had been able to an immense amount of work. If you look at the bottom right of the picture, you can see the car under bricks.
Many media outlets were reporting on the aftermath of the storm damage.
Many buildings sustained damage. The roads were covered in broken glass. I had to be careful walking on the sidewalks in the dark. The broken glass almost looked like an ice storm.
Traffic lights were mangled, and many street signs were damaged. This metal grate was snapped in half.
The Wells Fargo Tower at 1000 Louisiana Street had some of the worst damage. Many of the glass windows were broken. The side courtyard to the building had piles of broken glass, and the door was broken.
It is difficult to tell which windows are broken and what are just reflections, but many of these are broken windows.
Portions of Louisiana Street were closed to traffic, and cars that had been on the road were damaged.
Some buildings had almost no damage, and immediately next to them were other buildings that had almost every window broken.
The day after the storm the entire downtown area was filled with work crews. Despite extreme amounts of damage, they were able to quickly secure dangerous buildings and begin clearing debris.
