East Texas Power Outages Persist Amid Severe Storms and Heat Wave

More than 100,000 households and businesses in East Texas are still without power due to severe storms that hit the region early Friday morning, including an Enhanced Fujita-1 tornado that caused severe damage to homes in Panola County. The tornado and subsequent storms caused major damage to the grid provider’s transmission system, leaving residents without air conditioning amid extreme heat and humidity. Many counties in the region were under a heat warning, which means the heat index was expected to be over 105 degrees for at least two days. A disaster declaration has been issued by Gov. Greg Abbott, allowing seven counties in the region to use state resources to respond to the storm.