By: Hongkang Zhao

Tropical Storm Beryl brought thunderstorms and tornado warnings to East Texas and parts of Arkansas and Louisiana on Monday evening, after lashing Houston and its suburbs with strong winds and torrential rains. The storm knocked out power to nearly three million homes and businesses.

About one out of every five electricity customers in Texas had lost power by midday of Monday from the effects of Beryl, and more than 2.7 million outages stemming from one utility in the Houston area. CenterPoint Energy, which provides retail electricity in two states, said more than 2.2 million of its customers were without power in the Houston area. The company said crews would begin to assess and repair damage to the system when it is safe to do so.

CenterPoint Energy, one of four electricity suppliers for Harris County, home to Houston, estimates more than half of their 2.6 million customers in Texas are without power. But residents cannot track outages in their area because the utility’s online map went offline after a storm in May.

Soon after, the nation’s fourth-largest metro area began assessing the damage late Monday and recovering from the storm’s impact. The winds had been stronger than expected, officials said, leaving the roads blocked in many places by trees and other debris.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/07/us/texas-hurricane-beryl

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