A strong upper level disturbance moving through Southeast Texas Wednesday morning left downed trees and power outages as winds gusting up to 53 mph tore through the area.

As of 8:30 a.m., about an hour after the storm moved through Jefferson County, there were nearly 38,000 customers without power throughout Entergy Texas’ multi-county service territory.

The electric utility’s website indicated 4,421 people in Jefferson County did not have electricity. Of those, 1,432 Entergy customers in Port Neches were without power, 968 in Nederland, 944 in Groves and 119 in Port Arthur.

Debi Derrick, Entergy spokesperson, said the hardest hit areas were in Montgomery County, Conroe and The Woodlands. Silsbee was also hit hard by the storm.

Peak outages across the company’s service area occurred around 7:15 a.m. when 47,202 customers were without power.

“We do anticipate some customers will be without power overnight, but that can only be determined once assessments of the damage is made,” Derrick said.

Peak wind speeds at the Jack Brooks Regional Airport measure gusts up to 53 mph, Todd Mogged, forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Lake Charles office, said.

Nearby China, Texas had winds gusting to 62 mph and Jasper 54 mph. Beaumont also saw wind gusts at 53 mph. Twenty miles offshore south of Sabine Pass wind gusts reached 79 mph.

“Woodville and up in that area go the brunt of it this morning, Mogged said.

The NWS has forecast a chance of rain through the weekend.

E-mail: sherry.koonce@panews.com

Twitter: sgsturdivant