ROCKPORT, Tex. — Hurricane Harvey bombarded a stretch of the Gulf Coast in Texas on Saturday with home-ripping winds and epic rains. As emergency officials scrambled to assess the extent of the damage, hundreds of thousands of people were without power after utility poles were knocked to the ground as if they were twigs.

The storm made landfall here in the coastal city of Rockport, ripping away roofs, leveling palm trees and road signs, and turning ranch land into lakes. Mayor Charles J. Wax said Saturday that conditions were too dangerous to send out emergency officials but that an initial review, as the storm’s eye passed overnight, had found “widespread damage.”

“We took a Category 4 storm right on the nose,” the mayor said.

Those who rode out the storm were in awe of Harvey’s power. Standing by his ripped-up home in Sienna Plantation, a community southwest of Houston, Jamie Ellis, 48, said he had been watching a movie about 1 a.m. Saturday when a tornado swept through that sounded “like a freight train was coming.” The lights went out, the upstairs French doors flew open, and objects began careening around inside his house. He, his wife, Stacie, and his son, Zach, took refuge in a bedroom closet.