Four die as Hurricane Beryl hits southeast Texas, 2.6 million people suffer power outage

Beryl hit Texas on Monday morning as a category one hurricane, but it has since been downgraded to a tropical depression, BBC reported.

Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport is leading the nation in cancelled flights, with more than 2,300 total flights cancelled into and out of the airport as of 10 p.m. Monday, NBCFW reported quoting FlightAware data.

On Monday night, nearly 2.6 million customers suffered a power outage, revealed data showed by poweroutage.us.

Based on current progress with its damage assessment and initial restoration, CenterPoint now expects to have 1 million impacted customers restored by the end of the day on Wednesday, July 10.

  “While we tracked the projected path, intensity and timing for Hurricane Beryl closely for many days, this storm proved the unpredictability of hurricanes as it delivered a powerful blow across our service territory and impacted a lot of lives,” said Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President, CenterPoint Energy. “We know we have important work ahead for our customers who depend on us, especially during the hot summer months.” 

According to reports, the storm left at least nine people dead when it swept through Caribbean and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula last week.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden called Houston Mayor  John Whitmire and condoled the loss of lives due to the storm.

He reassured the mayor that “Texans have the resources they need to get through the storm now, and to recover going forward,” according to the White House as quoted by CNN.

Hurricane Beryl, which left a trail of destruction from the Caribbean to Mexico – and now the United States – has once again underscored the urgent need for robust early warning systems, the UN meteorological agency (WMO) said on Monday.

Beryl is the strongest hurricane ever to form in the Atlantic during June and rapidly intensified from a tropical depression to a Category 4 storm, briefly reaching Category 5 with winds up to 240 km/h (150 mph).

It made landfall in Texas early Monday morning local time as a Category 1 hurricane, causing a dangerous storm surge and the risk of flash flooding.

It is expected to weaken rapidly as it moves further inland, according to the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) specialized regional centre Miami, which is operated by the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).