Hurricane “Beryl” has reached the US state of Texas. In the Houston metropolitan area, hundreds of thousands of people were temporarily without electricity, and in some areas a state of emergency was declared. Two people died.
Hurricane Beryl hit land in the USA at around 130 kilometers per hour after wreaking havoc across the Caribbean. US meteorologists warned of life-threatening flooding caused by storm surges along the coast of the state of Texas. The storm has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.
The town of Matagorda, where “Beryl” landed, is located about 130 kilometers southwest of the metropolis of Houston – in the region, up to two and a half million households were affected by power outages. According to police, a 53-year-old man died in the rubble of a house that had been hit by a fallen tree in the area of the city of one million. In addition, a 74-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree in the same area, police reported.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick declared a state of emergency in 121 counties, and in Refugio County, 7,000 people were ordered to evacuate as a precautionary measure. In the coastal areas threatened by “Beryl,” many residents initially did not heed the call to evacuate, but instead settled for staying put after slamming doors and windows shut.
Texas and Arkansas affected
“Beryl” has been keeping people in the region on tenterhooks for more than a week after it formed in the Atlantic at the end of June. In the southeast of the Caribbean, it temporarily reached the highest hurricane strength, Category 5, meaning sustained winds of more than 251 kilometers per hour. It swept over several islands in the Lesser Antilles, made landfall on the east coast of the Mexican Yucatán Peninsula, and then moved on through the Gulf of Mexico.
According to forecasts, “Beryl” will move northeastward inland toward the state of Arkansas.
