Hurricane Beryl slams into Texas coast

Hurricane Beryl has hit the coast of Texas, where major oil ports have closed, flights have been cancelled and some residents of beach towns have evacuated from their homes.

The hurricane made landfall on Monday in the town of Matagorda with winds of 80 miles per hour (130 kilometres per hour), said the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC).

‘Deadly storm’

Acting Texas Governor Dan Patrick on Sunday declared 120 counties in the state to be disaster areas, warning that Beryl “will be a deadly storm for people who are directly in that path”.

As the storm approached, residents hurried to board up windows and stock up on fuel.

School systems – including the state’s largest in Houston – said they would close while airlines cancelled more than 1,300 flights and officials ordered a smattering of evacuations in beach towns.

Patrick expressed concern that not enough residents and vacationers in Beryl’s path heeded the warnings to leave.

“One of the things that kind of trigger our concern a little bit, we’ve looked at all of the roads leaving the coast and the maps are still green,” he said. “So we don’t see many people leaving.”

Houston Mayor John Whitmire, whose residents are under tornado alert, said: “We have to take Beryl very, very seriously. Our worst enemy is complacency.”

Houston residents should know “the conditions that you go to sleep under tonight will not be the same that you wake up to in the morning”, he said.

Nearly 490,000 homes and businesses in Texas lost power, according to PowerOutage.us data.

Shan Mei Martinez and Mario Martinez attach braces to secure their bay-facing door as residents prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Beryl in Port Lavaca, Texas, on July 7 [Kaylee Grenlee Beal/Reuters]

Internet connectivity monitor NetBlocks on Monday morning also reported “significant declines” in connectivity in parts of the state, including the Houston area, after Beryl made landfall.

Several counties in southeastern Texas were under a flash flood warning as thunderstorms unleashed up to 15cm (6 inches) of rain, with more expected.

Beryl is the first hurricane since NHC records began to reach the Category 4 level in June and the earliest to hit Category 5 in July.

It is rare for such a powerful storm to form this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November.

Scientists said climate change likely plays a role in the rapid intensification of storms such as Beryl because there is more energy in a warmer ocean for them to feed on.