Credits: ABS-CBN News
Houston, Texas — At least eight people were killed in the southern United States as storm Beryl brought down trees and caused severe flooding before being downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone on Tuesday.
In the aftermath, millions in the Houston area remained without power, enduring sweltering temperatures under a heat advisory. President Joe Biden stated that the extreme heat and power outages were “the greatest concern.”
Beryl entered Texas from the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday, causing the deaths of at least seven people in Texas and one person in neighboring Louisiana, according to authorities.
The total death toll from the record-breaking hurricane has risen to at least 18 after it tore through the Caribbean last week, at one point reaching Category 5, the highest recordable strength. Approximately 2 million households in Texas were without electricity on Tuesday evening due to damaged power grids, with temperatures forecasted to reach 41 degrees Celsius with humidity factored in.
“The greatest concern right now is the power outages and extreme heat that is impacting Texans,” Biden said in a statement. Another 14,000 homes in Louisiana were also without power, according to poweroutage.us tracker.
Air-conditioned shelters were set up for residents while crews worked to restore service. Beryl weakened on Tuesday and was heading northeast through the Midwest United States with 30 mph (45 kph) winds. The US National Hurricane Center warned that the storm could still generate flooding and tornadoes.
Houston, home to 2.3 million people, was severely affected by hurricane-strength winds and flooding. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez reported on X that a 53-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman died in separate incidents of trees falling on houses.
Later, Houston Mayor John Whitmire announced at a press conference that one person died after a lightning strike possibly ignited a fire, and a police department employee died in floodwaters on his way to work. In Louisiana, one death was reported by the Bossier Parish sheriff’s office, also caused by a tree falling on a home.
Rose Michalec, 51, told AFP that Beryl blew down fences in her south Houston neighborhood. “It’s quite a bit of damage… It’s more than we expected,” she said.
In downtown Houston, several areas were inundated, including the park where 76-year-old Floyd Robinson usually walks. “I’m seeing more of this kind of damaging water than I’ve ever seen before,” said the lifelong Houston resident. “This is just the beginning of July and for us to have a storm of this magnitude is very rare.”
Along the Texas coastline, several waterfront homes and buildings had their roofs torn off by the wind. Beryl initially struck Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as a Category 4 storm before moving past the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at one point strengthening to Category 5.
The storm hit Mexico on Friday, flattening trees, lampposts, and ripping off roof tiles. Beryl left a deadly toll with three deaths in Grenada, two in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela, and two in Jamaica.
Beryl is the first hurricane on record to reach Category 4 in June and the earliest to hit Category 5 in July. It is also the earliest hurricane to make landfall in Texas in a decade, according to expert Michael Lowry.
It is extremely rare for such a powerful storm to form this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November. Scientists suggest that climate change likely contributes to the rapid intensification of storms like Beryl due to the increased energy in a warmer ocean.
