Tropical Storm Beryl updates: State officials confirm third death from the storm

CenterPoint Energy expects to restore power to 1 million customers in Texas impacted by Hurricane Beryl by the end of Wednesday, the provider said Monday evening.

The utility said that by 8 p.m. Monday, it had restored power to roughly 285,000 customers — a fraction of the 2.3 million customers who lost power. CenterPoint, which provides power to most residents in Harris and Fort Bend counties, said it began to mobilize restoration crews Monday afternoon as the storm moved out of its service area.

State officials also began to assess the damage wrought by the storm by Monday afternoon.

Beryl had knocked out power for around 2.7 million Texans on Monday, according to PowerOutage.us.

By 7 p.m., the National Hurricane Center discontinued all tropical storm and storm surge warnings. But a public advisory said the storm would continue to produce flooding rains and a risk of tornadoes across parts of East Texas.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said earlier Monday at a news conference that he was confident President Joe Biden would issue an emergency declaration for the region, which he and his colleagues would support.

“The rebuild is going to be significant. There was real damage. But the good news is for Houston, this ain’t our first rodeo,” Cruz said.