An aerial view of destroyed homes in Surfside Beach, Texas, after Hurricane Beryl made landfall on July 8, 2024. Hurricane Beryl made landfall in the US southern state of Texas on July 8, killing at least two people and causing dangerous winds and flooding that left millions without power. Evacuation orders have been issued along parts of the coast. (Photo by Mark Felix/AFP)
HOUSTON (AFP) — Flood watches were issued for several US states on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Beryl battered the southern US with heavy rains, killing at least four people in Texas.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Beryl could batter parts of the US and cause flash flooding “from the lower and middle Mississippi River basin into the Great Lakes” through Wednesday.
Tornadoes are also possible in parts of the South on Tuesday, the NHC said in its latest warning.
Beryl struck Texas as a Category 1 hurricane, leaving millions without power amid scorching summer heat, before weakening on Monday night.
Houston, a sprawling city of 2.3 million people, was badly damaged by hurricane-force winds and flooding early Monday, and authorities said at least four people had died in a storm-related incident.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said at the X that a 53-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman were killed in separate incidents when trees fell on homes.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire later said at a press conference that one person had died in a fire caused by a lightning strike and that a police department employee had died in flooding on his way to work.
About 2.6 million homes in Texas were without power as of Monday evening, according to the poweroutage.us tracker, as temperatures were expected to exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) over the next few days.
Rose Michalek, 51, told AFP that Beryl blew down a fence in her neighbourhood in south Houston.
“For a Category 1 storm, it’s pretty damaging. It’s more than we expected,” she said.
In downtown Houston, several areas were completely flooded, including the park where 76-year-old Floyd Robinson usually walks.
“We’re seeing more damaging water than we’ve ever seen before,” the lifelong Houston resident told AFP.
“It’s still early July and it’s very unusual to have a storm of this magnitude,” he added.
AFP journalists along the Texas coast saw several seaside homes and buildings with their roofs blown off by the wind.
Several municipalities in the region had issued voluntary or mandatory evacuation orders ahead of the storm.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Louisiana, the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office said one person was killed when a tree fell on a home.
Monday’s deaths bring the total number of deaths from the storm, which began slamming the Caribbean as a powerful hurricane more than a week ago, to more than 12.
Beryl initially struck Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as a Category 4 storm, before passing through the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, briefly strengthening to a Category 5, the highest level.
It struck Mexico on Friday as a Category 2 hurricane, downing trees and light poles and blowing off roof tiles, but no deaths or injuries were reported.
Beryl was the first hurricane to reach Category 4 levels in June since NHC records began, and the earliest to reach a maximum Category 5 level in July.
