Beryl ravages Houston, killing 4 and knocking out power to millions

Tropical Storm Beryl left a trail of destruction through the heart of Houston on Monday, turning roads into rivers, killing at least four people and knocking out power to more than two million customers across Texas.

The storm, which made landfall early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, weakened as it passed over the city and continued its swirling march north.

But the tornado’s relatively modest strength was no match for its power, local officials said. As the storm ripped through Houston, officials advised residents to stay indoors and away from windows, “as if a tornado was coming toward you,” warned residents Lina Hidalgo, the top county official in Harris County, which includes Houston.

The center passed just west of the city, meaning Houston took some of the storm’s worst hit as it rotated counterclockwise.

Authorities began assessing the damage Monday afternoon as residents streamed out of the city to a landscape of downed power lines, damaged homes, fallen trees and water streaming down streets. The city’s airports remained closed into the afternoon due to persistent high winds.

Houstonians have long been accustomed to power outages and heavy rains. But Beryl, which began as an unusually powerful storm in the Caribbean, offered an ominous omen, striking early in what had been shaping up to be an unusually active hurricane season.

“The wind gusts were much stronger than I expected for a Category 1 hurricane,” said Julie Kickham, who rode out the storm in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood. “It makes me nervous for the rest of hurricane season.”

This is the second time in less than two months that Houston residents have seen their city pummeled by winds and plunged into darkness. Before hurricane season even began, an unexpectedly powerful storm struck Houston and its surrounding suburbs in May, killing at least seven people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands for days.

The number of people without power was much higher Monday: About one in five Texas electric customers had lost power by midday, with most of the more than 2.7 million outages occurring at a single utility, CenterPoint Energy, in the Houston area.

“I don’t have the power,” Mayor John Whitmire said at a news conference. “We’re all in this together.”

Authorities warned that it would take several days for many city residents to get their power and air conditioning back, with temperatures expected to soar to 32C on Tuesday. In areas where residents could afford them, the sound of backup generators could be heard roaring through the streets.

Two people were killed inside their homes, crushed by the weight of trees toppled by the wind. One was a man who lived with his family in the Atascocita area, north of Houston. The other, a 74-year-old woman, was killed in a northwest neighborhood near Interstate 45, authorities said.

A third victim, a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department, drowned when his car was submerged in water, Mayor Whitmire said. The employee was exiting a freeway and ended up in a flooded underpass. Whitmire said the man tried to call other members of the department for help, but they were unable to reach him in time.

A fourth death, caused by a house fire Monday morning, is also linked to the storm.

As with previous severe storms that have hit the city, Beryl has transformed Houston’s skyline.

Trees blocked roads. Toads, whose mating calls are usually heard when the weather cools at night, sang in the daylight. Sections of highways filled with water, forming white waves, resembling a rough sea in the middle of the city.

A rescue team using a crane pulled a man from a pickup truck that was surrounded by rough, rising waters along Interstate 288. At least eight people had been rescued from the high water by midday, said Deputy Police Chief Thomas Hardin.

Several Houston bayous, which help drain water from the city during storms, were filled to capacity and in some cases overflowed. The county’s flood warning system showed several locations where the bayous were overloaded, including one near downtown.

Oil giant Marathon Petroleum said Monday that its Galveston Bay refinery briefly lost power during the storm and was flaring off excess gas as a safety precaution.

But unlike Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which lashed the city and rained for days, Beryl passed through Houston relatively quickly, allowing floodwaters to begin slowly receding by the afternoon without any apparent large-scale industrial damage.

Later in the day, some coastal areas were beginning to emerge from the storm and resume their normal routines. In the Gulf Coast city of Galveston, several people gathered at Robert’s Lafitte bar, two blocks from the beach. Owner Scott Butler said the bar had no power but there was plenty to drink.

The storm is expected to move across eastern Texas toward Shreveport, Louisiana, and Texarkana, Arkansas.

The report was produced by Ivan Penn, Steve Kenny, Edgar Sandoval And Rick Rojas.