At least one million power-less after Hurricane Beryl hits Texas
At least one person is dead after Hurricane Beryl battered Texas, causing massive damage and prompting water rescues.
In the wake of Hurricane Beryl, millions of Texans woke up on Tuesday without power as high temperatures and humidity blanketed much of the state’s southeast, triggering heat advisories as the deadly storm pushed further inland, bringing heavy rain and possible tornadoes to the central U.S.
Beryl, the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record, weakened to a tropical storm after making landfall on the Texas coast early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane − turning streets into rivers, trapping people in their cars and knocking out power to more than 2 million homes and businesses. The storm has been linked to at least eight deaths in Texas and Louisiana.
Now a tropical depression, Beryl is expected to continue losing strength as it moves further inland, though it will remain potent enough to drop several inches of rain on multiple states and spin up tornadoes as it heads toward the Northeast, according to the National Hurricane Center. On Tuesday, over 21 million people from Arkansas to Maine were under flood watches, the National Weather Service said.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick warned that while Beryl has moved out of the state, dangerous flooding could last for several days.
The deadly storm swept through Jamaica, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines last week. At least 11 people were killed in Mexico and the Caribbean before Beryl reached Texas.
See outage map: Beryl leaves millions without power, heads toward Mississippi
Developments:
∎ In Harris County, which encompasses Houston, the sheriff’s office’s high water rescue team continued responding to incidents across the city Tuesday.
∎ Texas oil and gas companies that shut down in anticipation of Beryl’s arrival restarted operations Tuesday despite damage to some of their facilities and power outages in some areas.
∎ Officials with the city of Houston asked people to “avoid all unnecessary travel” Tuesday to clear the roads for authorities working to remove debris and restore power.
∎ More than 2,500 first responders were deployed statewide to assist in the recovery effort, according to Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
∎ Patrick said Tuesday that President Joe Biden has granted his request of a federal emergency disaster declaration, which would help cover recovery costs. Biden also told Houston Mayor John Whitmire his administration “will make sure Texans have the resources they need to get through the storm now and to recover moving forward.”
In the wake of Hurricane Beryl, another form of dangerous weather is bearing down on parts of Texas as more than 2.1 million homes and businesses are out of power: High heat and humidity.
Weather officials issued a heat advisory from 7 a.m. Tuesday to 7 a.m. Wednesday across much of southeast Texas, from the Gulf Coast through Houston and Montgomery County. Heat index values, also called “feels-like temperatures,” could reach 106 degrees in the afternoon, prompting authorities to urge residents to find places with working air conditioning, drink plenty of water and to check in on neighbors, friends and relatives.
“These values could become dangerous in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl,” the weather service office in Houston said Tuesday. “Take precautions in your recovery efforts.”
Extreme heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather. This week, a relentless heat wave scorching the West Coast is suspected to have killed at least five people as temperatures soared into the triple digits. More record-breaking heat was expected to bake the West Coast in the coming days, with some areas reaching up to 30 degrees above average, the National Weather Service said.
Beryl is projected to drench a vast swath of the central and eastern U.S. as it unleashes thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes from the lower Plains to the Northeast.
The storm is expected to move over Arkansas and enter the lower Ohio Valley by Tuesday evening, threatening the region with possible tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service. The heaviest rainfall will follow Beryl’s track through Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana through late Tuesday, where up to 8 inches can fall, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bill Deger said.
“Since the storm will be moving fast, this rain can fall in just a matter of hours, leading to reduced visibility for motorists and flash flooding on highways and in poor-drainage areas,” he said.
On Wednesday, the storm is forecast to bring its “prolific heavy rain” and tornado threats to the lower Great Lakes and northeast regions, including upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania and parts of southern Maine. Torrential downpours are expected to develop along the mid-Atlantic coast before expanding into New England at midweek, according to AccuWeather.
Lingering moisture across the Northeast, even after Beryl dissipates, will continue to fuel storms from Thursday to Friday and possibly Saturday, AccuWeather said, adding that it’s possible parts of the East could receive half a foot of rain.
More: Record-high temperatures from Portland to Phoenix as heat wave continues. Is end in sight?
State and local officials in Texas warned that it could take several days to restore electricity after Beryl knocked out power to millions of homes and businesses.
Nearly 1.7 million customers were without power in the Houston area early Tuesday afternoon, CenterPoint Energy reported, saying more than 850,000 had it restored in the previous 24 hours. According to PowerOutage.us, over 2.1 million Texas homes and businesses had lost power while about 20,000 were out of electricity in Louisiana and Arkansas.
In a statement on X, CenterPoint Energy said it expects to restore power to 1 million customers by Wednesday night. The company, which provides service in Houston and surrounding areas, said nearly 12,000 field resources were assisting in the response.
At its peak, over 2.2 million CenterPoint Energy customers were without power on Monday. By 8 p.m., 285,000 customers had their power back on, the company said in a statement.
“While we tracked the projected path, intensity and timing for Hurricane Beryl closely for many days, this storm proved the unpredictability of hurricanes as it delivered a powerful blow across our service territory and impacted a lot of lives,” said Lynnae Wilson, senior vice president of CenterPoint Energy.
Multiple people were killed in eastern Texas and one person died in Louisiana in storm-related incidents, according to officials.
A 53-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman were killed in two incidents after trees fell on their homes on Monday, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
Whitmire said a Houston Police Department civilian employee drowned when he got caught in flood waters while driving to work. In southeast Houston, a man died in a fire believed to have been started by lighting as Beryl bore down on the city.
A man operating a tractor was killed after a tree fell and struck him, according to Montgomery County Emergency Management. In addition, two people were found dead in a tent in a wooded area of Montgomery County, north of Houston. No further details were available.
In northwest Louisiana, a woman died after a tree fell on her home, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office in Bossier Parish.
Hundreds of egrets were thrown from their nests and drowned as Hurricane Beryl slammed southeast Texas on Monday, the Houston chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said in a statement.
The nonprofit said specialists with its wildlife center in Texas were on scene in Cypress, a city just northwest of Houston, to rescue the injured and orphaned egrets that survived.
The specialists were expected to bring back around 300 birds to their campus for triage and medical care, the statement said.
Egrets are all-white wading birds that make their home in wetlands across the United States. They’re found throughout Texas and the Gulf Coast states year-round, according to the Houston Audubon Society.
Contributing: Doyle Rice, Minnah Arshad, USA TODAY; Reuters
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Publish date : 2024-07-09 14:56:15
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