Hurricane Beryl has killed at least six people in Texas and one in Louisiana, and a massive cleanup and reconstruction effort is underway to reconnect 2.1 million people. Energy customers lost power during the storm’s devastating march through the region.
A 53-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman died after trees fell on their homes in separate incidents in Harris County, Texas, police said.
Montgomery County Emergency Management confirmed the deaths of three people: a man in his 40s who crashed into a tree while operating a tractor, and two people whose bodies were found in a tent in a wooded area in Magnolia.
Information security officer Russell Richardson, 54, “tragically died after being caught in flooding,” the Houston Police Department confirmed Monday.
In Bossier Parish, Louisiana, northeast of Shreveport, Sheriff Julian Whittington said in a statement on Facebook that a woman died after a tree fell on her home.
Acting Governor Don Patrick said on Tuesday He requested and was granted a federal emergency disaster declaration by FEMA after speaking with President Joe Biden to assist in the state’s recovery process.
Beryl was later downgraded to a tropical depression, but more than 25 million people from Arkansas to Michigan remained under a flood watch Tuesday morning as it moved northeast.
Up to 5 inches of rain and thunderstorms are possible along the storm’s path, and some thunderstorms could be severe and develop into tornadoes, the National Weather Service said.
There were 110 tornado warnings on Monday — the most for any July day — including 67 in Shreveport, Louisiana.
At least six people died in Texas as the storm made landfall Monday as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 80 mph.
Sarah Glass and her husband were in the living room as the storm passed when the lights went out. He went to check the generator and she went to find flashlights and candles. Minutes later, a large tree tore through their home in Wharton, Texas, about 60 miles southwest of Houston.
“When I got into the kitchen, [there was a] The big crash and the ceiling fell,” he told NBC News. “We were in the living room and we moved — that’s where all the spiked trees came down from the ceiling, so we could have been killed.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 2.1 million customers were without power PowerOutage.us, Including 1.7 million customers of Centerpoint Energy, a major supplier to the Houston area.
The company said that Over 1 million have been recovered It said it expected connections to be restored in the past 24 hours and another million by the end of Wednesday, but its crews are battling high water to reach some areas after more than a foot of rain fell in the past 24 hours.
Downed trees and downed power lines from strong winds across the greater Houston area, the company said, had a worse-than-expected impact due to a slight shift in the storm’s course.
“We didn’t really sleep,” Eva Costancio said as she watched a large tree fall across power lines in her neighborhood in the Houston suburb of Rosenberg. Costancio told The Associated Press that he had already been without power for several hours and worried that the food in his refrigerator would spoil.
“We struggle to get food and it’s hard to lose that food,” he said.
Houston opened cooling centers Tuesday amid a predicted heat advisory Heat index up to 105 degrees For parts of southeast Texas. The National Weather Service office in Houston warned of widespread power and air conditioning losses causing dangerous conditions for local residents.
Galveston Mayor Craig Brown said Tuesday that there were no fatalities or serious injuries due to the beryl, but there was extensive structural damage.
Social media users posted the footage on Monday Freezing rain in Houston; Heavy thunderstorms St. Louis, Missouri; and flooding in Bryant, Arkansas.
