Berylwhich strengthened into a hurricane again overnight Sunday into Monday, made landfall in Texas with winds of 80 mph (130 km/h), causing heavy rains, coastal flooding and power outages.
“The center of Beryl made landfall near Matagorda,” a seaside resort southwest of Houston, according to a bulletin from the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued at 4 a.m. local time (5 a.m. in Quebec).
” Beryl “The hurricane is moving inland over eastern Texas. In some areas of the state, it has brought life-threatening storm surges and heavy rains. Damaging winds continue along the coast with significant gusts,” the NHC added in another bulletin issued an hour later.
As of dawn Monday morning, some 250,000 residents were without power in Texas, according to the website poweroutage.us.
Berylwhich had been downgraded to a tropical storm after leaving at least seven dead in its wake in the Caribbean and Venezuela, is once again considered a Category 1 hurricane — the lowest — with winds ranging from 119 to 153 km/h.
The NHC also issued a tornado warning for parts of Texas, including Houston, a city of 2.3 million people that is at risk from the hurricane’s projected path.
” We need to take Beryl “very, very seriously,” warned its mayor, John Whitmire. Houston residents should know “that the conditions in which you go to sleep tonight will not be the same as those in which you wake up tomorrow morning,” he insisted Sunday.
Early Monday morning, the city was battered by heavy rain, accompanied by gusts of wind.
Images captured overnight Sunday into Monday by a hurricane hunter from the town of Sargent, near Matagorda, showed heavy rain and coastal flooding.
“The combination of storm surge and tide will cause flooding of normally dry areas near the coast,” the NHC warned.
Authorities in Nueces County, home to the port city of Corpus Christi, asked beachgoers to leave the city, while neighboring Refugio County — which has yet to fully recover from Hurricane Harvey in 2017 — issued a mandatory evacuation order Saturday.
The city of Galveston, southeast of Houston, has ordered a voluntary evacuation for some areas, with videos posted on social media showing lines of cars leaving the city.
Acting state Gov. Dan Patrick urged Texans to stay alert, listen to local authorities and leave the danger zone if possible.
Early weather phenomenon
“This storm will be deadly to people in its direct path,” Patrick said at a news conference hosted by state emergency services. “Believe me, you don’t want to be in a Category 1 hurricane,” he added.
The White House said Sunday it was monitoring the situation.
According to the NHC, Beryl is scheduled to move east to Texas on Monday, before continuing on to Mississippi and Ohio on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We expect steady to rapid weakening as [Béryl] moves inland, and becomes a tropical storm again later [lundi] then a tropical depression on Tuesday,” the forecast service said.
First hurricane of the Atlantic season, which runs from early June to late November, Beryl is unusually powerful and early. Scientists say climate change, by warming ocean waters, makes it more likely that storms will intensify rapidly and increases the risk of hurricanes.