Father dies when tree flattens his Texas home

At least two people were killed in the Houston area on Monday when Hurricane Beryl hit Texas, causing trees to fall on homes before the storm was expected to move north toward Arkansas early Tuesday morning.

Among the confirmed dead are a 53-year-old father and a 74-year-old grandmother, authorities in Harris County said.

The man, whose identity has not been publicly released, was sitting with his wife and children in a home in Humble when an oak tree broke through the roof and struck the home’s rafters, leaving him trapped underneath, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez wrote in a post on X.

The rest of the family was unharmed, Gonzalez wrote.

Daniel Becerril/Reuters

In Ponderosa Forest, authorities received a report from a caller who said “a tree had fallen through the roof of her grandmother’s room,” Harris County police officer Mark Herman wrote in a Facebook post.

“We are sad to announce that the 74-year-old victim has been confirmed dead,” Herman wrote. “Please keep her family in prayer.”

The deaths came shortly after Beryl made landfall in Texas early Monday morning. The storm brought with it a life-threatening storm surge and wind gusts of up to 130 kilometers per hour and cut a path through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean, where it left at least 11 dead.

Beryl reached Texas as a Category 1 hurricane, but was later downgraded to a tropical storm.

At 10 a.m. Central Time, Beryl’s path was expected to turn north after heavy rains in Houston and reach southwest Arkansas at 7 a.m. Tuesday, according to an update from the National Hurricane Center.

Daniel Becerril/Reuters

Meanwhile, the center warned of flash flooding through Monday night and rip currents that would cause “life-threatening beach conditions along portions of the northern and western Gulf Coast through Tuesday.”

“Life-threatening flooding from storm surge will continue through this afternoon along the Texas coast from Port O’Connor to Sabine Pass, including the eastern portion of Matagorda Bay and Galveston Bay,” the update said.

“Destroying wind gusts near the core of Beryl will continue to spread northward within the Tropical Storm Warning area, including the Houston metropolitan area, over the next few hours.”