Where is Beryl headed next? What you need to know about the deadly storm

A day after Tropical Storm Beryl struck Houston with deadly force, flooding roads and highways and killing at least four people, Texas officials were scrambling to restore power to millions of residents as warm weather returned to the region.

The hurricane, which made landfall in Texas around 4 a.m. Monday, weakened as it passed through the sprawling city and its suburbs. But its powerful winds still left Houston residents reeling for the second time in two months after a deadly storm system hit the city in May.

Houston lost several trees, including two that fell on homes, killing residents.

The storm brought winds of 65 mph as it passed through Houston, but also brought gusts of more than 80 mph, hurricane force, in and around the city. That was enough to tear off branches and topple trees throughout the city.

Two of the confirmed deaths from Monday’s storm involved trees that fell on homes, crushing the people inside.

In one case, a tree fell on a home in the Atascocita area, northeast of the city, killing a man who was inside with his family. He was 53, the Harris County sheriff said on social media. Another person was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to local fire officials.

The other person killed by the falling tree was a 74-year-old woman who was in her home north of downtown Houston, near Interstate 45.

The storm moved quickly, not stopping like Hurricane Harvey.

Storm Beryl brought heavy rains to Houston. Floodwaters filled many of the city’s drainage bayous to the edge of their levees and, in some cases, overtopped them. Elsewhere, sections of highways and underpasses were filled with water. Authorities said at least 47 people had to be rescued.

A civilian employee of the Houston Police Department died after driving into a flooded underpass near downtown, where his car was submerged. (A fourth person died in a house fire in southeast Houston, which Houston Mayor John Whitmire said was “storm-related.”)

But the city was spared widespread flooding in neighborhoods. Unlike Hurricane Harvey, the storm that devastated the city in 2017, Beryl moved through Houston relatively quickly, arriving in the early morning hours and leaving the city by afternoon.

While water levels were high in many places, they were already starting to recede on Monday and that trend is expected to continue on Tuesday.

Millions of people were left without electricity, not knowing when it would be restored.

Once the storm passed, the biggest problem for Houston residents became the widespread lack of electricity. The main electricity provider, CenterPoint Energy, said Monday that more than 2 million customers were without power, and officials did not immediately provide a timetable for when power would be restored.

About one in five Texas electric customers had lost power as of midday Monday, with most of the outages occurring in the Houston area.

“The vast majority of us are without power,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official, said at a news conference Monday afternoon. She added that about 10,000 electricians were ready to begin repairs as soon as it was safe to do so, including 7,000 workers who came from outside the Houston area to help.

CenterPoint said in a statement that customers in the hardest-hit areas should prepare for an extended period without power.

“This will be a multi-day restoration effort,” said Thomas Gleeson, chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission.

The damage in the United States is insignificant compared to what happened in the Caribbean.

The storm’s strength has diminished significantly from its peak in the Caribbean. Beryl formed in June and became a Category 5 hurricane, the earliest on record in the Atlantic Ocean.

The storm killed at least 11 people on several Caribbean islands, including Jamaica, and in Venezuela.

In Carriacou and Petite Martinique, Grenada, Beryl destroyed about 98 percent of buildings, home to about 10,000 people, when it struck as a Category 4 hurricane on July 1, officials said.

The storm is weakening, but tornadoes remain possible.

Beryl was leaving Texas on a path that would continue to Louisiana and Arkansas, then further north.

As the storm moved inland, it continued to weaken. But tornadoes remained possible. Forecasters issued tornado warnings for parts of eastern Texas and Louisiana on Monday.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said at a news conference that “a number of tornadoes” were reported in northeast Texas on Monday.

Judson Jones contribution to the report.