• Deluge, suspected twisters hit Houston area

    Richard Carson / Reuters

    This vehicle was among the dozens stranded in high water across Houston on Monday.

    By msnbc.com staff

    Torrential rain, flooding that cut off highways and even suspected tornadoes gave the Houston area major weather headaches on Monday.

    The Mall of the Mainland in Texas City had to close after damage from a suspected twister Monday afternoon. It was unclear if there were any injuries.

    "The structural integrity of the building has been compromised," Texas City Fire Chief Joe Gorman was quoted by the Houston Chronicle as saying.

    Several homes closer to Houston were damaged by another suspected twister.

    "All the doors in the house were trying to open and shut. It sounded like a train going through, so we hid in the closet," Beverly Moore was quoted by KPRC TV as saying. "It was definitely a tornado. We hid for about 15 minutes."

    Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle via AP

    This intersection in Houston, at Buffalo Speedway and Richmond Avenue, saw plenty of heavy rain Monday.

    The deluge from the system closed down a stretch of Texas State Highway 288 for most of the day. A dozen other freeway intersections in the Houston area also saw flooding and rainfall of more than four inches in just a few hours.

    "Between 9 a.m. and about noon today the Houston police department had 51 active flood locations with flooding reports and that’s all over the city in city streets,” the Chronicle quoted city spokesman Michael Walter as saying.

    The suburb of Sugar Land got more than six inches of rain.

    The storm cut power to nearly 20,000 utility customers at its peak, and officials reported numerous water rescues of people stranded in homes or cars.

    Houston, like most of Texas, has seen drought conditions for most of the last year and Monday's storm isn't expect to help much on its own. Any sustained recovery will require a long stretch of rain, forecasters say.

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