Matagorda, Texas.- Storm Beryl began lashing Texas with increasingly intense rain and winds on Monday as coastal residents boarded up windows, abandoned beach towns after being ordered to evacuate and braced for the powerful storm that has already made a deadly path across parts of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Although Beryl remained a tropical storm Sunday as it approached Texas, it threatened to regain hurricane strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall early Monday. The storm was forecast to make landfall midway along the Texas coast around Matagorda Bay, an area about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Houston, but officials warned its path could still change.
Texas officials warned the storm would cause power outages and flooding, but they also expressed concern that not all coastal residents and beachgoers in areas where Beryl is forecast to hit are heeding warnings to stay away.
“One of the things that we’re a little concerned about, we’ve looked at all the roads coming off the coast and the maps are still green,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, referring to the fact that the color of the roads has not changed to red to indicate they are saturated. “So we’re not seeing a lot of people leaving.”
Patrick is currently serving as acting governor while Governor Greg Abbott is overseas.
Along the Texas coast, many residents and business owners took the usual precautions for approaching storms, but also said they felt uncertain about the severity of the storm.
In Port Lavaca, Jimmy May was installing plywood over the windows of his power company and said he wasn’t worried about possible storm surge. He noted that his business had not been flooded during a previous hurricane that brought a 20-foot storm surge.
“In the village, if you are in the low-lying areas, you obviously need to get out of there,” he said.
Farther south along the coast in the town of Freeport, Mark Richardson, a 64-year-old retiree, said homeowners were busy “trying to tie everything down,” and he was concerned that people are uncertain where Beryl will make landfall along the Texas coast. He spent Sunday morning on the beach and said ocean swells were rapidly increasing.
“The ocean is getting very angry, very fast,” he warned.
Beryl, the earliest storm to reach Category 5 status in an Atlantic season, caused at least 11 deaths as it barreled through the Caribbean toward Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows and roofs with devastating winds and storm surges fueled by record-breaking ocean heat.
Three times in her week of life, Beryl has gained 35 mph (56 km/h) in wind speeds in 24 hours or less, the weather service’s official definition of rapid intensification.
Beryl’s explosive growth into a record-breaking early storm literally shows the warm waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean, and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the remainder of the storm season, experts said.
A flash flood warning was in effect for a wide swath of the Texas coast, where forecasters expect Beryl to dump up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain in some areas.
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