Severe weather expected today in Houston area

KRPC: You can see a wall of heavy rain," KPRC Local 2 meteorologist Anthony Yanez. "From 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock is the time to watch for these dangerous storms."

"Do not take these warnings lightly. Typically, whenever we get these and see a pattern like we had this morning, we'll see a handful of tornadoes," Yanez said.

Gusty winds and scattered showers moved through the area at 2 a.m., knocking out power to 30,000 CenterPoint Energy customers. As of 6:30 a.m., approximately 18,000 people remained without electricity.

"Earlier this morning, we had wind gusts of 50 to 55 mph," Yanez said. "That's what knocked down some of those trees and power lines. We could still see some 60 mph straight-line winds, hail and lots of lightning."

A low-pressure system is responsible for strong storms in central and northern Texas, which are expected to drench the Houston area most of the day.

"There's a couple of lines that we're tracking. The strongest one will arrive in Houston around noon. It's a concern for this morning until early afternoon. The radar is picking up a lot of twisting winds," Yanez said. "It's going to be wet from 8 o'clock all the way through 2 o'clock. By 5 p.m., this storm system will be in our eastern counties."

Yanez said south of Interstate 10 is not expected to see the strongest storms.

"It's a lot more scattered and not as well put together," Yanez said.

Power outages caused problems for some southwest Houston businesses.

Whataburger on the Southwest Freeway near Weslayan had to turn away customers when employees could not prepare food for the morning rush.

"Their lights just came back on (at 6 a.m.), but they weren't ready to serve yet," customer Carol Bennett said.

Many Houstonians were worried about flooding after severe weather left its mark on Jan. 9.

Houston firefighters performed about 140 water rescues when people became stranded in high water.

Officials warned drivers to "turn around, not drown" if they approached rising water.

Flooding is the most common hazard in Houston and many times, individuals are not able to judge the depths of water along roadways and find themselves in perilous conditions.

Officials said 6 inches of water can cause tires to lose traction and begin to slide, and 12 inches of water can float many cars. Two feet of rushing water will carry off pickup trucks, SUVs and most other vehicles.

Water across a roadway may hide a missing segment of road or a missing bridge, officials said.

In flash floods, waters rise so rapidly they may be far deeper by the time you are halfway across, trapping you in your vehicle.

Be especially cautious at night, when it's even more difficult to gauge the amount of water in a roadway.

The safest option is to simply avoid driving over water and find an alternate, safer route, or wait until the danger has passed.

Police concentrating on heroin problem ...

Two years ago, police established a task force to tackle what seemed to be a growing heroin problem among teens. They believe they've made a lot of progress, including Wednesday's arrest, although it also confirms the drug is still in demand there.

While suburban and quaint, Friendswood also has its share of big city crime. And early Wednesday morning, the focus was on an accused drug pusher in possession of about 7 grams of heroin.

"He's the one that's delivering it down at the street level," Friendswood Police Department Chief Robert Wieners said.

According to Friendswood police, officers interrupted a drug deal in the 3300 block of FM 528 early Wednesday morning. They arrested Isaac Dominguez, whom they say admitted to being a user. But they also believe he's a major supplier in the area.

Heroin use has been back on the radar in Friendswood since a Christmas Eve fatal overdose.

"We are certainly very well aware of the heroin trafficking that's going on," Wieners said.

The last time we talked to police there about heroin was two years ago when they were seeing more and more teenagers using what's called black tar heroin, a less refined version. Here, it was being used in liquid form that can be sniffed from an eyedropper.

"Without the needles, that makes it a lot more acceptable," Mark Norris said.

Norris is a licensed clinical social worker for Cenikor Foundation. They treat a lot of heroin addicts. He says liquid heroin has less of a stigma but still comes with all the dangers.

"The thing about it is you never know the potency of it. You might do X quantity for two weeks and then X quantity the next week kills you," Norris said.

Norris says dealers market to teens and even though police have made this arrest.

"There's always somebody waiting in line for that market. Those drugs will get there," Norris said.

Dominguez told officers he's a train conductor. The amount of drugs he had on him, police say, was worth about $500 on the street.

Again, they say he's a major supplier so they hope his arrest will puts a dent in the current trade.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Leak at Deer Park plant

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)-Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA, RDSA.LN) Tuesday reported an emissions event caused by a leak in overhead piping at the company's joint-venture refinery in Deer Park, Texas.

In a filing to Texas state environmental regulators, the company said the emissions were routed to the appropriate safety flare system and that refinery personnel depressured and isolated the leak from the Debenzenizer 1 column in just over 10 minutes.

The Debenzenizer and Hydrotreater 2 were listed as sources of the emissions.

It is not clear whether the event had an impact on production at the 327,000-barrels-a-day refinery that Shell Oil, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, operates in partnership with PMI Norteamerica S.A. de C.V., a subsidiary of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

Rare treat: Houstonians can watch as Space Station crosses Moon

A slice of Houston will have a chance to view a rare treat this evening.

Not only will the International Space Station make an incredibly bright, six-minute track across the sky tonight, some observers will be able to see the orbital laboratory blink across the moon.

Beginning at 6:28 p.m. the station will rise above the northwest horizon in Houston, and disappear just above the southeast horizon some six minutes later. Skies are forecast to be partly cloudy.

Along this path, for some parts of Houston all the way to Galveston, the station’s track will bring it across the face of the moon.

The following map, made by Steve Clayworth of Observable Universe, shows the approximate area from which this will be visible.