HOUSTON.- Some of the millions of homes and businesses left in the dark when Hurricane Beryl slammed into the Houston area were beginning to regain power as the weakened storm moved east, causing more damage and possible tornadoes.
Several people were killed in Texas on Monday by the storm, and at least one was killed in Louisiana, authorities said.
After the number of customers without power reached 2.7 million people in the Houston region on Monday, the number improved to more than 2.4 million homes and businesses without service by Monday night, according to PowerOutage.us. Lack of air conditioning in homes, downed power lines and outage traffic lights prompted authorities to ask people to stay home if possible.
“Houstonians should know that we are working tirelessly to keep them safe,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said at a news conference Monday, urging residents to be aware of flood dangers, stay hydrated and check on their neighbors.
Beryl weakened to a tropical depression on Monday, with maximum sustained winds of about 35 mph (56 kph). The system remained dangerous, and the National Weather Service confirmed on social media late Monday that tornadoes had been reported in northeastern Louisiana. One woman in the Benton area was killed after a tree fell on her home, Bossier County Sheriff Julian Whittington said on Facebook.
Dozens of tornado warnings were issued in Louisiana and Arkansas throughout Monday afternoon and evening.
Although weakened, Beryl threatened to bring severe weather to several more states in the coming days.
State and local authorities warned it could take several days to restore power after Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, downing 10 transmission lines and bringing down trees and power lines.
On Tuesday, it was a much weaker storm than the Category 5 storm that left a trail of death and destruction across parts of Mexico and the Caribbean last weekend. But its winds and rains were still strong enough to topple hundreds of trees already standing unsteadily on waterlogged ground and leave dozens of cars stranded on flooded roads.
“We’re not out of the woods,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is serving as acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country.
Patrick said the utility CenterPoint Energy would deploy thousands of additional workers to restore power, prioritizing places like nursing homes.
At least two people have died after trees fell on their homes in Texas and a third person, a civilian employee of the Houston police force, died after being trapped in floodwaters under a highway overpass, Whitmire said.
Power outages were an all-too-familiar experience for Houston. Powerful storms that swept through the area in May killed eight people, left nearly a million people without power and flooded numerous streets.
Houston and Harris County officials said crews will be dispatched to restore power to the area as quickly as possible, an urgent priority for homes that also lost air conditioning in the middle of summer.
Temperatures were expected to be in the mid-90s on Tuesday. The National Weather Service issued a high temperature advisory, indicating wind chill values for the area could reach 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 degrees Celsius).
Beryl was expected to bring more rain and wind to other states in the coming days. One of them, Missouri, was already having a wet summer. Heavy rains unrelated to the storm prompted several water rescues in the city of Columbia, where rivers and streams were already swollen ahead of Beryl’s expected landfall on Tuesday.
Source: With information from AP