Beryl knocks out power to more than 2 million, leaves 4 dead, after making landfall as Category 1 hurricane
After coming ashore as a Category 1 hurricane Monday morning roughly 85 miles southwest of Houston, Beryl knocked out power to more than 2 million customers.
The storm, which has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, packed winds of more than 80 miles per hour as it made landfall and was blamed for the deaths of at least two people who were killed by trees that fell on homes. Another person was killed in a house fire reportedly started by a lightning strike as the storm passed over Harris County, and a fourth died after his car was submerged, officials said.
After dumping several inches of rain Monday, roadways across the Houston area were flooded, bringing travel to a standstill. Beryl caused some structural damage, but far less than was witnessed when the storm battered islands in the Caribbean after undergoing record-breaking intensification and becoming the earliest Category 5 storm in recorded history to form in the Atlantic basin.
At least 11 people were killed when the massive storm swept across Jamaica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and northern Venezuela before making landfall in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
One big mess
Galveston, Texas, also took a hard hit from the storm, officials said in a Facebook post Monday afternoon.
"The island experienced substantial wind damage in the form of downed power lines, transformers, trees and other debris," the post read. It could take as long as two weeks to restore power to the entire island, officials added.
Experts warned late Monday that even though Beryl is expected to weaken further — likely becoming a tropical depression Monday night and a post-tropical cyclone on Tuesday, when its center of circulation will be located over Arkansas — the storm system still posed significant flash flooding risks in the coming days.
"Beryl has been a resilient storm ever since it exploded into a Category 5 hurricane in the Caribbean last week," Alex DaSilva, AccuWeather's lead hurricane expert, said in a news release. "People in the path of Beryl's track should not let their guard down this week. Beryl will bring the risk of tornadoes as far away as Ohio. Downpours from Beryl could also cause flash flooding as far north as Detroit, more than 1,100 miles from where Beryl made landfall in Texas."
A tornado was reported in Jasper, Texas, as the storm passed on Monday.
"We have power outages all over town, and we don’t have an estimated time when they will be restored," the city of Jasper said in a Facebook post. "Watch out for down power lines; always treat a power line as if it’s live."
No power, but plenty of heat
In Houston, where the rainfall tapered off late Monday afternoon, residents were left to try to clean up the mess Beryl left behind. With millions of residents still without power, that will be made more challenging by the hot weather forecast over the next two days. The forecast in Houston calls for a heat index of 105 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Mayor John Whitmire said that his home was one of those without power.
“We’re going to take care of every community. No community is favored over another community. Every Houstonian is important to us. We’ll get your power on as quickly as possible,” he said.
