Texas Coast Braces for Beryl Power Outages

MATAGORDA, Texas (AP) — Beryl began pounding Texas with rain and increasingly strong winds Sunday as coastal residents boarded up their windows, left beach towns under evacuation orders and braced for the powerful storm that has already carved a deadly path through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean.

Although Beryl remained a tropical storm Sunday as it headed toward Texas, it threatened to potentially regain hurricane strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall early Monday. The storm was expected to make landfall along the mid-Texas coast around Matagorda Bay, an area about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Houston, but officials warned its path could still change.

Texas officials warned the storm would cause power outages and flooding, but also expressed concern that coastal residents and beach vacationers in Beryl’s path were not adequately responding to warnings to leave.

“One of the things that’s a little bit concerning to us is we’ve looked at all the routes leaving the coast and the maps are still green,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is serving as the state’s acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling abroad. “So we’re not seeing a lot of people leaving.”

Along the Texas coast, many residents and business owners took standard storm precautions but also expressed uncertainty about the storm’s intensity.

In Port Lavaca, Jimmy May strapped plywood over the windows of his power company and said he wasn’t worried about rising waters. He recalled that his business had escaped flooding during a previous hurricane that brought waters up to 20 feet.

“In the city, you know, if you’re in the low-lying areas, obviously you have to get out of there,” he said.

Farther down the coast in Freeport, Mark Richardson, a 64-year-old retiree, said the owners were busy “trying to get everything fixed” and worried that Beryl would make people unsure where along the Texas coast she would make landfall. He spent Sunday morning on the beach and said the ocean swell was rising quickly.

“The ocean gets very angry, very quickly,” he said.

Beryl, the first storm to strengthen into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, killed at least 11 people as it barreled through the Caribbean toward Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows and roofs with devastating winds and a storm surge fueled by record Atlantic heat.

On three occasions in its single week of existence, Beryl recorded wind speeds exceeding 35 mph (56 km/h) in 24 hours or less, which meets the official definition of rapid intensification according to the weather service.

Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early storm shows the magnitude of warm Atlantic and Caribbean waters and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the remainder of the storm season, experts said.

Texas officials warned residents along the coast to prepare for possible flooding, heavy rain and strong winds. The hurricane warning extends from Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, to Sargent, south of Houston.

Beryl could also bring heavy rain to Houston, where storms in recent months have knocked out power in the nation’s fourth-largest city and flooded neighborhoods. A flash flood warning was in effect across a wide swath of the Texas coast, where forecasters expected Beryl to dump up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain in some areas.

Potential storm surges of between 4 and 7 feet (1.22 to 2.13 meters) above ground level were forecast around Matagorda. The warnings extended to the same coastal areas where Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane, much stronger than Beryl’s expected intensity by the time the storm made landfall.

Those looking to fly out of the area may find that option nearly impossible as Beryl moves closer. Hundreds of flights from Houston’s two major commercial airports had been delayed by mid-afternoon Sunday and dozens more canceled, according to data from FlightAware.

In Corpus Christi, officials asked visitors to shorten their stay and return home as soon as possible. Residents were urged to secure their homes by boarding up windows if necessary and using sandbags to protect against possible flooding.

Traffic has been nonstop for the past three days at an Ace hardware store in the city as customers bought tarps, ropes, duct tape, sandbags and generators, employee Elizabeth Landry said Saturday.

“They’re just worried about wind and rain,” she said. “They want to be prepared just in case.”

The White House said Sunday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent emergency responders, search and rescue teams, bottled water and other resources along the coast.

Several coastal counties have called for voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas prone to flooding. Local officials have also banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling over the July 4 weekend to move their recreational vehicles out of coastal parks.

Earlier this week, Beryl struck Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, toppling trees but causing no injuries or deaths before weakening to a tropical storm as it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula.

Before hitting Mexico, Beryl caused damage in Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados. Three people were killed in Grenada, three in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Jamaica.

Beryl would be the 10th hurricane to hit Texas in July since 1851 and the fourth in the past 25 years, according to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University.