Death toll rises as Beryl pummels Texas with tornadoes, 90 mph gusts, leaving over 2.7 million without power

MATAGORDA, Texas – Hurricane Beryl crashed ashore along the central Texas coast early Monday morning, pummeling the area with 90 mph wind gusts that brought life-threatening storm surge, widespread damage, and knocking out power to well over 2.7 million people while leaving at least three dead. As it moved inland, the cyclone spawned tornadoes across Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. 

Beryl was downgraded to a tropical storm late Monday morning and then a tropical depression Monday evening, but it was still wreaking havoc along its journey further into Texas. The storm center passed just outside the Houston metro area, pummeling the nation’s fourth-largest metro area with hours of wind gusts over 70-80 mph and dumping over 10 inches of rain, leading to flash flooding. 

A Tornado Watch was posted for parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma as the threat of tornadoes increased as Beryl moved inland. Multiple tornadoes were reported in East Texas and Louisiana, ripping roofs from homes and uprooting trees. 

On Monday evening, Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick confirmed three deaths from Beryl in the state.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that a tree fell onto a home in the Kings River Village area, trapping a man under the debris. Gonzalez said the man was reportedly sitting inside the home with his family riding out Beryl when a large tree fell onto the house. His wife and children were unharmed.

A few hours later, Gonzalez said a second death was reported after a tree fell onto another home, killing the woman inside.

A Houston Police Department civilian employee was killed as he was on his way to work during the hurricane. Officials said 54-year-old Information Security Officer Russell Richardson was caught in rising floodwaters.

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The cyclone’s powerful hurricane-force winds have been leading to skyrocketing power outages. Over 2.7 million electrical customers in Texas have lost power, according to PowerOutage.us, and the numbers continue to rise. 

Gusts hit 94 mph in Freeport, 89 mph in Matagorda Bay, 84 mph at Houston Hobby Airport and 82 mph at Houston Intercontinental Airport.

And while Galveston hit 86 mph for a top gust, the city recorded three straight hours of 70 mph wind gusts early Monday morning.

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Storm surge was forecast to reach 3-7 feet in some spots near Beryl, and water pushed into the Texas coast and bays along Beryl’s approach. Measurements at Morgan’s Point along the shores of Upper Galveston Bay reached 5.4 feet above the mean high water level, now the third-highest surge on record. It also had the highest storm surge since it reached 7.78 feet during Hurricane Ike in 2008.

Readings earlier in the morning reached 3.2 feet in Sargent and 2.6 feet in Matagorda Bay, but those gauges have since ceased reporting, possibly due to power outages.

“That (storm) surge is just pouring into Treasure Island,” said FOX Weather Storm Tracker Mark Sudduth. “You could literally see it pouring in like a raging river right now.”

The ferocious gusts blasted torrential rainfall, falling at rates of 2–4 inches an hour.

“It feels like the entire backs of my legs are on fire because it stings,” Merwin said as she reported live from Surfside Beach, Texas early Monday morning. “The raindrops almost turn into a needle head. Almost like, as if you were getting a tattoo. Like, it’s that kind of feel of that persistent needle pressure against your skin.”

The National Weather Service in Houston reports flash flooding is ongoing in parts of the Houston Metro area. As much as 10 inches of rain have fallen across the Huston metro, and rainbands from Beryl persist across the metro.

As Beryl continues northward, it’ll bring rain and strong winds as far north as Michigan by the end of the workweek. 

Beryl’s current forecast cone shows the storm will weaken as it moves north but maintains tropical depression strength from Arkansas through Michigan throughout the week. A tropical depression is a cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 38 mph or less. Unlike tropical storms and hurricanes, tropical depressions are identified by numbers rather than names.

The Weather Prediction Center outlined an area from Arkansas through central Illinois that could see flash flooding Tuesday into Wednesday. 

Beryl’s destructive past

Beryl’s third landfall in Texas culminates a 10-day trek that began on June 29 in the Atlantic and spanned much of the Caribbean Sea, first smashing into the Windward Islands as a Category 4 hurricane. 

It then swiped at Jamaica and the Cayman Islands as it crossed the Caribbean Sea and made a second landfall on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula as a strong Category 2 hurricane. 

The storm left at least 10 people dead as it made its journey across the Caribbean.

Texas was Beryl’s third and final landfall before the storm is forecast to deteriorate as it moves northward through the U.S.