HOUSTON — While hundreds of thousands of Greater Houston-area residents are dealing with power outages and damage, a few families lost so much more during Thursday night's deadly thunderstorm.
In Houston's east, a young mother of four was killed by an uprooted tree when she went outside to move her car on Avenue O near W. Hedrick.
"She told her husband that she wanted to go out and move the car because there's an old tree back there, very large tree, and she was concerned about it falling," Houston Police Department Lt. R. Willkens told us. "Unfortunately, when she got in the car, it fell when she was inside."
Christin Martinez, 31, was pinned inside so HPD and the Houston Fire Department had to call heavy-duty wreckers to lift the tree off the SUV and remove her body.
Martinez was the mother of a baby she was still breastfeeding and three older boys, ages 8,10 and 12.
Family members told us she was a loving mother whose children were her world and she loved showing them off.
Martinez and her husband were high school sweethearts who'd been inseparable since they met 15 years ago.
A GoFundMe has been set up to assist the Martinez Family.
Not far from that tragedy, 72-year-old Juan Hernandez was killed in the Magnolia Park area when the powerful wind toppled a huge crane and it landed on his cement truck. A co-worker in the truck was badly hurt.
"Two cranes fell over, extremely large cranes, from the wind," Willkens said. "One of those fell on the cement trucks, ended up killing the one male that was 73."
It happened at Wingate near 75th Street.
"Prayers for their families. Huge tragic event," Willkens told us.
A man in the Heights was also killed by a tree that fell on his home. It happened on N Main Street between 28th & 29th streets.
We don't have information yet on the fourth and possibly fifth deaths.
"We should pause for a moment and acknowledge the loss of four Houstonians that were tragically the victims of this storm," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says there were also at least three more storm-related deaths in Harris County.
An 85-year-old woman died on Cypress Meadow Drive in a fire caused by lightning. A 57-year-old man died on Kilkenny Glenn Drive while trying to move a downed electrical pole. A 60-year-old man lost power so he went outside to plug in his oxygen tank. He was found unresponsive.