Beryl Unleashes High Winds And Heavy Rains Across Texas

MATAGORDA, Texas (AP) — Tropical Storm Beryl unleashed heavy rains and powerful winds along the Texas coast on Monday, knocking out power to more than 2 million homes and businesses and flooding streets with fast-rising waters as first responders raced to rescue stranded residents.

Beryl had already cut a deadly path through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean before making a turn, sweeping ashore as a Category 1 hurricane in Texas early Monday, then later weakening to a tropical storm. At least two people were killed. The National Hurricane Center said damaging winds and flash flooding will continue as Beryl continues pushing inland.

More than 2 million homes and businesses in the Houston area were without electricity, CenterPoint Energy officials said. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country, said crews cannot get out to restore it until the wind dies down.

Residents without power were doing their best.

“We haven’t really slept,” said Eva Costancio as she gazed at a large tree that had fallen across electric lines in her neighborhood in the Houston suburb of Rosenberg. Costancio, 67, said she had been without power for about four hours Monday and worried that food in her refrigerator would be spoiled.

“We are struggling to have food and losing that food would be difficult,” she said.

High waters quickly closed streets. In flood-weary Houston, where previous storms had already washed out neighborhoods, television stations on Monday broadcast the dramatic rescue of a man who had climbed to the roof of his pickup truck after it got trapped in fast-flowing waters. Emergency crews used an extension ladder from a fire truck to drop him a life preserver and a tether