Beryl Updates: 7 killed in Greater Houston area; 3 million without power (2024)

At least seven people are dead after Beryl roared onto the Southeast Texas coast and wreaked havoc in the greater Houston area.

Millions of Texans are without power, and it could be up to a week before some people get it back.

Beryl made landfall at 3:50 a.m. Monday as a Category 1 hurricane near Matagorda, Texas, about 100 miles southwest of Houston, with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour.

More than 13 inches of rain were measured in Sugar Land, Texas.

At 10 a.m., the storm was dropped to a tropical storm as it moved through East Texas. Still, the storm threatened to spawn tornadoes. The National Weather Service confirmed that some tornadoes were spotted near northeastern Louisiana.

By 7 p.m., Beryl was downgraded to a tropical depression.

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick gave an update Monday evening, who is serving as acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country.

"Be very careful. Power lines are down, and we are sending crews and addressing it," he said. "There is still more flooding. Do not take this storm as it's passed you now."

Now, the most pressing issue is widespread power outages. Nearly 3 million homes and businesses lost electricity in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Officials say it will take days to restore power for everyone.

Beryl Turns Deadly

The storm has claimed at least seven lives in the Greater Houston area as it left its path of destruction.

A 53-year-old man was killed when a tree fell onto his house in Humble, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

Gonzalez says the man was sitting in the house with his family when an oak tree fell on the roof of his home.

"Unfortunately, a large tree in the back of the home fell due to the high winds... landed on the roof and his rafters came down on him and killed him in place as he sat on his couch in the middle of his home in the living area," he said.

The man’s wife and children were not harmed.

A 74-year-old grandmother in Houston was also killed. Officials say a tree fell through the roof of Maria Laredo's home.

Laredo's daughter-in-law told FOX 26 that she spoke to the victim about the wind shortly before she died.

"I guess she went back to sleep, and that's when it happened. I went downstairs, and that's when we heard the noise, the crack. It happened super fast," she said.

Downed power lines and lightning sparked fires across Houston. Officials said a house fire killed another person in southeast Houston early Monday.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire confirmed a 54-year-old employee of the Houston Police Department drowned while driving into work.

"Got into flood conditions at the Houston Avenue underpass. He knew he was in trouble," the mayor said. "He called HPS friends for help. I have been there all afternoon, watching his friends retrieve his body from his submerged car."

All day, highways in Downtown Houston remained underwater.

Along State Highway 288 and Loop 610, a man had to be plucked to safety by Houston firefighters. There were more than 15 high-water rescues across the area.

MORE: Beryl death toll: 7 killed in Houston-area by fallen trees, flooding, fire

North Texas Sends Help

Response and recovery efforts are underway after Beryl made landfall.

Emergency crews from across the metroplex are deployed in South and East Texas to help with water rescues and assist with the recovery efforts.

Crews from local, state and federal agencies were ready to move in once the storm passed.

Charlie Abney is a captain with Dallas Fire-Rescue. They are currently deployed as a water group supervisor with the Texas A&M Task Force One. It’s his job to make sure teams and boats are ready for water rescue calls.

Abney says his team was called to rescue people whose car was stuck in floodwater, and they were standing on the roof.

"And another one was, I believe a house that the roof had gotten ripped off. And there was a family inside that there's some water in there," he said. "And so we had to go check on that and see if they wanted to get out."

DFR deployed a total of 21 members, including a full boat team to help with the aftermath of Beryl.

Firefighters from McKinney, DeSoto, Grand Prairie, Fort Worth, Arlington and other North Texas departments are also lending a hand.

"I think it makes a good sense of community of seeing how far our state's willing to go to help out each other," Abney said. "We enjoy being able to go do what we can, regardless of what part of the state it is."

Once the storm moved past Houston, the crew followed its path to the east.

"That's why we have people up here in Corsicana," Abney said. "But we're also kind of scattered out to Huntsville, down into Beaumont, actually. So we got the whole stretch of the east part of Texas going on today until this thing is cleared out."

The crews on deployment could be gone for up to two weeks at a time.

When it comes to the task force, Abney says they are there for as long as they are needed.

Right now, there’s no timeline on when those crew members will return back to North Texas.

Beryl's Impact on North Texas

The remnants of Beryl have been downgraded to a tropical depression as it makes its exit from East Texas.

There was heavy rain from Texarkana reached as far west as Paris, bringing several inches of rain to parts of Northeast Texas.

The DFW metroplex only received a few isolated showers. But for the most part, there was no major impact on North Texas.

Overnight, there’s a 30% chance of rain well northeast of the metroplex. Tuesday morning will be cloudy, but it will stay dry with plenty of sunshine breaking through as the day progresses. There may be a few pop-up showers on Wednesday and Thursday.

Overnight, Beryl exits Texas and heads northeastward through Arkansas and southeast Missouri. It will continue to race northeast through the Ohio Valley. By early Thursday morning, it should be north of Toronto, Canada.

FOX 26 Houston and FOX Weather contributed to this report.

Beryl Tropical Storm Path Live

FOX Weather Coverage of Beryl