Beryl, now a tropical storm, continued to batter Texas on Monday with heavy rain and strong winds, knocking out power to more than 2 million people and businesses and flooding streets with fast-rising waters that forced dozens of water rescues.
The storm threatened to leave a trail of trouble across several states in the coming days. At least three people were killed in the storm in Texas.
After making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, Beryl weakened within hours to a tropical storm, a far cry from the Category 5 event that left death and devastation in its wake across Mexico and the Caribbean over the weekend.
But Beryl’s winds and rains were still powerful enough to topple hundreds of trees, toppling over due to saturated soil, and leave dozens of vehicles stranded on flooded roads.
At least two people were killed after trees fell on their homes, and the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said damaging winds and flash flooding would continue as Beryl moved over land.
However, no large-scale structural damage was immediately reported. A third person, a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department, died after being trapped in floodwaters under a highway overpass, Houston Mayor John Whitmire said.
In Photos | Beryl passes through Texas leaving behind severe flooding and destruction
Tropical Storm Beryl brought heavy rains and powerful winds along the Texas coast, knocking out power to more than 2 million homes and businesses and flooding streets with rapidly rising waters.
Without light
More than 2.2 million homes and businesses were left without power in the Houston area, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, after Beryl, according to CenterPoint Energy. For many of those affected, it was an all-too-familiar experience: Powerful storms hit the area in May alone, leaving eight people dead, nearly a million people without power and several streets flooded.
Residents without power after Beryl were doing what they could.
“We haven’t really slept,” said Eva Costancio as she looked up at the massive tree that had fallen on power lines in her neighborhood in Rosenberg, a suburb of Houston. Costancio, 67, said she had been without power for several hours and was worried about food in her refrigerator spoiling.
“We have trouble getting food and it would be bad to lose what we have,” he said.
Houston and Harris County officials said crews will be dispatched to restore power to the area as quickly as possible, an urgent priority for homes that also lost air conditioning in midsummer. Temperatures, which dipped slightly with the storm’s arrival, were expected to rise again to around 90 degrees by Tuesday, according to forecasts.
“While these efforts are in full swing, we want residents to be aware and prepare for several days without power,” Galveston city officials said in a Facebook post. “We estimate the time could range from 72 hours to two weeks in parts of the island.”
Houston authorities reported at least 25 water rescues as of Monday afternoon, most of them involving people whose vehicles became stranded in floodwaters.
Beryl had weakened to a tropical storm after causing damage along Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, but it became a hurricane again on Sunday night. The center of the storm made landfall around 4 a.m. Central Time, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Houston, with maximum sustained winds of 78 mph (128.7 km/h).
More than 1,000 flights have been canceled at Houston’s two airports, according to FlightAware flight data.
Beryl, the earliest storm to reach Category 5 status in an Atlantic season, caused at least 11 deaths as it barreled through the Caribbean toward Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows and roofs with devastating winds and storm surges fueled by record-breaking ocean temperatures.
Three times in her week of life, Beryl has gained 35 mph (56 km/h) of wind speed in 24 hours or less, the weather service’s official definition of rapid intensification.
Beryl’s explosive growth into a record-breaking early storm is a reflection of high water temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean, and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the remainder of the storm season, experts said.
[Con información de AP y Reuters]
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