Beryl brought heavy rain and strong winds to the Houston area Monday morning while causing widespread power outages and at least three deaths, according to local officials.
The storm made landfall near Matagorda around 4 a.m. Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, according to the National Weather Service, bringing 80-mile-per-hour, hurricane-force winds to portions of the Texas coast. It was downgraded to a tropical storm shortly after 10 a.m., when it was moving north through the Houston region.
Beryl’s rain and winds had largely left the metro area by mid-afternoon, although many bayous and roadways were flooded and more than 2.2 million homes and businesses in the Houston area were still without electricity, CenterPoint Energy’s online outage tracker showed. And at least two people had died as a result of fallen trees.
“The rains are pretty much ending from south to north,” Eric Berger, a meteorologist with Space City Weather, said at about 2 p.m. Monday. “We’re going to see pretty significant improvement in these creeks and bayous over the next several hours. … There should be considerable improvement today and into this evening.”
As local officials assessed the damage and began recovery efforts Monday afternoon, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said power outages, flooding and roadway conditions were the most significant issues. She said CenterPoint is expected to provide restoration estimates on Tuesday, when the county also plans to open shelters for impacted residents.
In the meantime, Hidalgo encouraged those in the Houston area to stay close to home through Monday night.
“Stay where you are unless you really need to go out,” she said Monday afternoon. “There are lots of hazards out there. There’s debris. There’s water. Sometimes you won’t know until you turn that there’s high water you can’t back away from.”
A tree fell on a home in Humble on Monday morning, killing a 53-year-old man inside, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office reported. The man was reportedly “sitting in house with family, riding out the storm. An oak tree fell on roof and hit rafters, structure fell on the male. Wife and children unharmed,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez wrote on X.
There also was a death in northwest Houston, near the intersection of FM 1960 and Kuykendahl Road, according to Gonzalez and Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey. Gonzalez said a 74-year-old woman was killed by a tree that fell on a home.
A third death was announced Monday afternoon by Mayor Whitmire, who said a Houston PD employee who was driving to work in the morning got trapped in high water after exiting I-45.
In a late afternoon presser, Hidalgo said first responders are aiding the Fire Marshal and County Engineer’s Offices in assessing the damage from Beryl.
“Those are important for us to see if we can reach the thresholds to achieve federal support for our residents,” she said. “And also, there may be government buildings impacted. There may be roads that we really need to clear, etc.”
She said the big challenge going forward is renewed heat, given the ongoing mass power outages.
“The heat, obviously, is the big problem. So, it’s going to be very hot, it’s going to be very humid, the heat index like what we’ve seen the past few weeks. So, the power continues to be the main threat.”
She added that 7,000 crews are heading to the Houston area from around the country to help restore power.
“This is a major event,” Ramsey said.
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