Hurricane Nicholas hits Texas with flash flooding, power outages | USA TODAY

Thousands are without power in Texas and Louisiana after Hurricane Nicholas made landfall. RELATED: Drone footage shows devastating flooding in Philadelphia Hurricane Nicholas slammed across the Texas coast early Tuesday, crashing onto land along the Matagorda Peninsula with torrential rains and storm surge and threatening to envelop much of the Deep South in flooding. The storm’s winds eased slightly as it crossed land, and Nicholas was a tropical storm Tuesday morning with sustained winds of 60 mph. The storm’s center was just 15 miles southwest of Houston. Nicholas reached shore 70 miles from where historic Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017 – and actually closer to Houston, which was overwhelmed by that Category 4 monster’s deadly flooding. On Tuesday, Matagorda was quickly awash in storm surge and flooding as Nicholas rolled in. “Nicholas could cause life-threatening flash floods across the Deep South during the next couple days,“ National Hurricane Center specialist