Two dead and power down in East Texas due to Hurricane Beryl
Hurricane Beryl battered southeast Texas early Monday with heavy rain and strong winds, killing two people and causing power outages for millions.
Hurricane Beryl slammed southeast Texas on Monday, leaving at least two people dead and millions of others without electricity after pounding the area with heavy rain and powerful winds.
One man and one woman were killed after trees fell on their homes in Harris County, Texas. Beryl has killed at least 11 people in the past week.
Beryl had weakened to a tropical storm after passing through the Caribbean and Mexico, but regained strength and reached Category 1 as it made landfall in southeast Texas early Monday.
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How many people have lost power in Texas due to Hurricane Beryl?
According to the Texas Power Outages Map, more than 2.7 million customers have no electricity due to the effects of the storm.
Those who were affected numbered at more than 163,000 shortly before 7:30 a.m. The number leapt to more than 1.5 million in less than half an hour, and now stands at more than 2.7 million, as of 7:39 p.m. CT.
State officials say it could take days to restore electricity.
Acting Governor Dan Patrick, who has stepped in while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country, had earlier given disaster declarations for 121 counties in the Lone Star State.
The storm has again weakened and is now moving north and east, and the lieutenant governor warns residents to be prepared for flooding that could persist for days, as Beryl has not stopped pouring rain into ground that has already been saturated with water.