At least four people died after Hurricane Beryl devastated Texas on Monday night.
Russell Richardson, a 54-year-old information security officer called in to help with relief efforts, died when his vehicle flooded while he was driving to work, Houston police said.
At least two people were killed when trees fell on homes, one of them a woman in Benton, Louisiana, according to Bossier Sheriff Julian Whittington.
Some local media reports suggest that up to six people have died from falling trees or drowning.
More than 2.4 million homes and businesses in the state were left without power after the storm, reclassified to a tropical storm on Monday, downed 10 long-distance transmission lines and toppled hundreds of trees, some of which downed power lines. local. .
Nearly two million of those affected are customers of CenterPoint Energy, Houston’s main electricity provider, which has said it hopes to restore service to half of them by Thursday, according to NBC, Sky’s US partner, citing PowerOutage. us.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the company was hiring thousands of additional workers to restore power and prioritizing places like nursing homes and assisted living centers.
Patrick said: “We have not overcome any difficult situations” and predicted a “multi-day process to restore power.”
A damaged house in Galveston. Photo: Reuters
Dozens of vehicles were left stranded on flooded roads as heavy rain inundated parts of the state.
Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States, suffered much of the damage when Beryl’s rains hit coastal areas, but there were no immediate reports of structural damage.
Local television stations aired video of the dramatic rescue of the man who had climbed onto the roof of his truck after becoming trapped in fast-moving water.
Emergency crews used an extendable ladder from a fire truck to drop him a life jacket and rope before moving him to dry land, one of at least 25 water rescues in the city, mainly for people with vehicles trapped in floodwaters.
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In May, eight people died and nearly a million were left without power when an earlier series of storms hit the city.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire said, “First responders are putting their lives at risk. That’s what they’re trained to do. It’s working.”
Damaging winds and flash flooding would continue as Beryl moves inland, forecasters said.
Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, suffered much of the damage. Photo: @ cjblain10 via X/via Reuters
With parts of the area sweltering in a heat wave, restoring power is an urgent requirement, even though temperatures dropped slightly with the storm.
Beryl further weakened into a tropical depression, the National Hurricane Center said Monday night, before moving eastward, putting several other states at risk.
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It is forecast to weaken further into a post-tropical cyclone on Tuesday.
As it moved inland, the storm threatened to create tornadoes, and the U.S. National Weather Service confirmed on social media that tornadoes had been detected in northeastern Louisiana.
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