Tropical Storm Beryl steamed toward Texas on Sunday, gathering strength before its expected landfall as a hurricane Monday morning.
Beryl is expected to be a Category 1 storm when it reaches Texas, the National Hurricane Center said in a Sunday update. The storm has already caused several deaths and catastrophic damage across parts of the Caribbean.
Meteorologists predicted Beryl would make landfall near the town of Matagorda, around 80 miles south of Houston. About 200 miles of the Texas coastline — from Baffin Bay north to San Luis Pass — was under a hurricane warning.
Around Matagorda and up to San Luis Pass, the NWS predicted up to six feet of storm surge. Additionally, between 5-10 inches of rain was expected across the region, with up to 15 inches falling in some locations.
Officials warned residents to expect power outages and flooding when the storm roars ashore, though few called for mandatory evacuations. The small municipality of Refugio County, north of Corpus Christi, called on all 6,700 of its residents to leave for safer areas; other locales relied on voluntary evacuations.
The Houston area, which was crushed by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, has been battered by floods already this year. In May, hundreds of people in the region were rescued from floodwaters after being trapped in their homes and on streets.
Beryl is already a historic storm – the first-ever storm to reach Category 4 status in June and the earliest to ever reach Category 5 status. Beryl became a Category 5 hurricane while churning in the Caribbean Sea on July 1, easily clearing the mark set by Hurricane Emily on July 16-17, 2005.
Before that, Beryl whipped through Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a Category 4 storm. Three people were killed in each of the countries. In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the storm destroyed nearly everything on the tiny island of Mayreau, the smallest inhabited island in the chain.
Beryl then gathered strength in the Caribbean Sea and crushed Jamaica, killing two people on the island. Additionally, three people were killed in Venezuela.
After striking Jamaica, Beryl whacked Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, making landfall as a Category 2 storm before losing strength over land. No deaths were reported in Mexico.
With News Wire Services
