Hurricane Beryl heads toward Texas coast; residents should expect flooding, power outages

Beryl strengthened into a hurricane again Sunday night as it began to pound South Texas with rain and increasingly strong winds as residents boarded up their windows, left beach towns under evacuation orders and braced for the powerful storm that has already carved a deadly path through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean.

The National Hurricane Center issued an update at 1 a.m. Dallas time, placing the storm about 30 miles (48.2 kilometers) southeast of Matagorda, Texas, and about 95 miles (152.8 kilometers) northeast of Corpus Christi.

The hurricane’s strongest and most sustained winds reached 80 mph (128.7 kph) as the storm moved northwest at 10 mph (16 kph). A hurricane warning is in effect for the Texas coast from Mesquite Bay north to Port Bolivar, the center said.

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Residents along the Texas coast boarded up their windows and evacuated coastal towns. The storm is expected to make landfall early Monday in the middle of the Texas coast around Matagorda Bay, an area about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Houston, but officials warned its path could still change.

Texas officials warned the storm would cause power outages and flooding, but also expressed concern that coastal residents and beach vacationers in Beryl’s path were not adequately responding to warnings to leave.

“One of the things that’s a little bit concerning to us is we’ve looked at all the routes leaving the coast and the maps are still green,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is serving as the state’s acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling abroad. “So we’re not seeing a lot of people leaving.”

Beryl is the 10th hurricane to hit Texas in July since 1851 and the fourth in the past 25 years, according to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University.

Beryl, which was the first Category 5 hurricane to develop in the Atlantic, killed at least 11 people as it passed through the Caribbean earlier in the week. It then hit Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, toppling trees but causing no injuries or deaths, before weakening to a tropical storm as it passed through the Yucatan Peninsula.

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Three times in its single week of existence, Beryl recorded wind speeds exceeding 35 mph in 24 hours or less, which meets the official definition of rapid intensification according to the weather service.

Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early storm shows the magnitude of warm Atlantic and Caribbean waters and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the remainder of the storm season, experts said.

Along the Texas coast, many residents and business owners took standard storm precautions but also expressed uncertainty about the storm’s intensity.

In Port Lavaca, Jimmy May strapped plywood over the windows of his power company and said he wasn’t worried about rising waters. He recalled that his business had escaped flooding during a previous hurricane that brought waters up to 20 feet.

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“In the city, you know, if you’re in the low-lying areas, obviously you have to get out of there,” he said.

At the nearby marina, Percy Roberts showed his neighbor Ken Waller how to properly secure his boat as strong winds blew in from the bay Sunday night.

“This will actually be the first hurricane I’m going to deal with,” Waller said, noting he was a little nervous but felt safe following Roberts’ lead. “Pray for the best, but expect the worst, I guess.”

Farther down the coast in Freeport, Mark Richardson, a 64-year-old retiree, said the owners were busy “trying to get everything fixed” and worried that Beryl would make people unsure where along the Texas coast she would make landfall. He spent Sunday morning on the beach and said the ocean swell was rising quickly.

“The ocean gets very angry, very quickly,” he said.

Beryl Evacuations

Some coastal cities called for voluntary evacuations of low-lying areas prone to flooding, banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling over the July Fourth weekend to move their recreational vehicles out of coastal parks. In Refugio County, north of Corpus Christi, officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for its 6,700 residents.

Traffic has been nonstop for the past three days at an Ace hardware store in the city as customers bought tarps, ropes, duct tape, sandbags and generators, employee Elizabeth Landry said Saturday.

“They’re just worried about wind and rain,” she said. “They want to be prepared just in case.”

Ben Koutsoumbaris, general manager of Island Market on Corpus Christi’s Padre Island, said there was “definitely a lot of buzz around the impending storm,” with customers stocking up on food and drinks, especially meat and beer.

The White House said Sunday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent emergency responders, search and rescue teams, bottled water and other resources along the coast.

Patrick issued a preemptive disaster declaration for 121 counties.

Beryl could also bring heavy rain to Houston, where storms in recent months have knocked out power in the nation’s fourth-largest city and flooded neighborhoods. A flash flood warning was in effect across a wide swath of the Texas coast, where forecasters expected Beryl to dump up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain in some areas.

Potential storm surges of between 4 and 7 feet (1.22 to 2.13 meters) above ground level were forecast around Matagorda. The warnings extended to the same coastal areas where Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane, much stronger than Beryl’s expected intensity by the time the storm made landfall.

Those looking to fly out of the area may find that option nearly impossible as Beryl moves closer. Hundreds of flights from Houston’s two major commercial airports had been delayed by mid-afternoon Sunday and dozens more canceled, according to data from FlightAware.

The storm threatened oil refineries, chemical plants and Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, which was dangerously exposed to flooding.