Beryl Barreling Our Way?

[majormadmax]

Death Toll: 8 (7 in Texas, one in Louisiana)

Three people in Texas were killed by fallen trees, one died in a fire, two drowned and a Houston Police Department civilian died after becoming trapped in his vehicle in floodwaters, officials say.

7 deaths reported in Houston area after Hurricane Beryl

Officials say those who died include a civilian HPD employee, a grandmother, a man sheltering with his family and a child.

www.fox26houston.com

 

[smittyb]

Death Toll: 8

"Around eight people are believed to be dead as a result of the storm, including seven in Texas and one in Louisiana.

This includes a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department, who was killed when he was trapped in flood waters under a highway overpass, Houston Mayor John Whitmire said."

ALL HPD are civilians.

 

[Rafe]

Well, since we're doing an after-action report... From what I can determine as of now, here's a partial summary of Beryl's aftermath in Texas:

• Seven people in Texas and one in Louisiana have been confirmed killed as a result of the storm. Two of them were a 53-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman who were killed in separate incidents when trees fell on their homes in the Houston area. Beryl killed at least 11 in Mexico and the Caribbean and before reaching Texas.
• Over 2.7 million homes and businesses in Texas lost power according to PowerOutage.us. CenterPoint Energy alone has reported 2.2 million customer outages. As of 17:00 July 9, approximately 1.5 million of those are still down. CenterPoint says that services to all accounts could take "a few days" to restore.
• In the Greater Houston area, some locations received over 13 inches of rain in less than 48 hours. Flood waters exceeded 10 inches across much of Houston, Mayor John Whitmire said. Some of the highest totals:

• Del Monte Park in Houston: 13.55 inches​

• Spring, Texas: 13.53 inches​

• Thompsons, Texas: 13.42 inches​

• Hilshire Village, Texas: 13.41 inches​

• Airlines canceled more than 1,300 flights in Texas.
• More than 2,500 first responders were deployed statewide, said the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
• Closures of major oil-shipping ports around Corpus Christi, Galveston and Houston ahead of the storm could disrupt crude oil exports, along with shipments of crude to refineries and motor fuel from the plants. Marathon Petroleum's refinery in Texas City was hit by a power interruption on Monday.

This is just a public service announcement because, since 2022, Texas has had the highest (known) recent population increase in the country, 29.6% greater than Florida that comes in at #2 for those years (Texas a 473,453 increase, Florida 365,205). A large part of the state is subject to tropical cyclone activity, and it's a very good idea to take advance precautions, create a hurricane preparedness kit, have contingency plans in the event you choose to evacuate, and to closely monitor the weather forecasts as a storm nears the coast. Because these things move around: four days before landfall, Beryl was supposed to be a Texas/Mexico border storm, not a Houston storm.

Beryl never became more intense than a Cat 1 hurricane as it arrived in Texas. The highest sustained winds were a little over 80 mph. Cat 2 sustained winds are 96 to 110 mph; Cat 3, 111 to 129 mph; Cat 4, 130 to 156 mph; Cat 5 is anything over 156 mph.

Beryl was also fairly small when it arrived in Texas in terms of geographic coverage. Hurricane Sandy, which hit the northeast, was the largest storm on record in the U.S. with a diameter of 1,150 miles. Katrina had a diameter of about 400 miles; Ike was about 550 miles.

The good news is that technology today gives us a lot of data and warning about hurricanes. Not so with earthquakes or tornadoes. Situational awareness: pay close attention and take the storms seriously. Then go ahead and live your life because Texas is a great place to be.

Edited: Today, July 9, CenterPoint Energy said that 1.5 million customers (meaning accounts, so everything from a single-family residence to a 300-unit hotel) are still without power. They are now saying that 50% of those "should" be restored by end-of-day Wednesday, but that it could take "a few days" to get everyone up and running again.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

How many BTU is your window unit?

It's actually a "portable" unit.
I believe its 10k, can't remember for sure, have had it a long time.

 

[skfullgun]

I’ve got

It's actually a "portable" unit.
I believe its 10k, can't remember for sure, have had it a long time.

I have a small window unit that I installed just for this reason. I can run it off of a small Honda generator and get by with minimal necessities. It is a 5k BTU and will cool only the bedroom.

I’m using a 2,200 watt Honda to power it and the fridge and freezer intermittently.

 

[MountainGirl]

It's actually a "portable" unit.
I believe its 10k, can't remember for sure, have had it a long time.

Ours is a 110 900w, the small gen ran it all night just fine on 5lb propane tank.
We're gonna need more propane before this month is over.

 

[Lead Belly]

Still no juice here. I run the genny once in awhile to keep fridge cool, but otherwise make do. Little 5k genny can run one of the house ac units.

Gas stations mostly plastic bags on handle around here, but Kroger came thru last night after waiting for 20 vehicles.

 

[kbaxter60]

Gas stations mostly plastic bags on handle around here, but Kroger came thru last night after waiting for 20 vehicles.

Dang. Sux.
ETA - did you try the GasBuddy app? We used it to check availability during the worst of Covid. All around us were out, but you could see SA stations that had it if you wanted to drive.

 

[robertc1024]

Finally able to get on-line for a bit.
Cell service has been off all day yesterday.
My house survived. Roof tile damage is all.
Town is a wreck. Trees down everywhere. Many have fallen on power lines and houses.
I spent yesterday morning chainsawing away trees so people could get out of their streets
Power is out to most of town. A few sections have power. Buc-ee’s on 2004/old Angleton road and College are open and have gas but huge lines.
Lowe’s was open yesterday. Walmart isn’t.
I’m getting along with my little Honda generaror.
No A/C or refridge but a few fans and lights.
Stupid hurricane

Ya know, you wouldn't have that problem in Sequin.

Glad for all of you folks that it wasn't worse than it was. Power outage in summer sucks though.

 

[kbaxter60]

Power outage in summer sucks though.

Turns out, it can suck in the winter, too. Don't even want to talk about how I know.

 

[Coiled]

I'm in a 100% zone
Misery & company I suppose . . .

 

[ZX9RCAM]

90.55% here.....

 

[oldag]

Imagine the early settlers in Texas. Every day was like this.

 

[Tnhawk]

Imagine the early settlers in Texas. Every day was like this.

They didn't have the democraps telling them the conditions were due to global warming.

 

[Sasquatch]

Well that was fun. My poor wife wound up having a panic attack and I had to call off (marriage / family before work) - we rode out the ultimate nothing-burger together at home. I can't say "nothing burger" really - *our* property was spared mostly - had a tree in the pasture snap in half. Limbs blew out of the trees all over our property - but we came thru pretty much unscathed. Our neighbors, not so much. Power lines downed all over our neighborhood from fallen trees. Some huge oaks blew down in a couple places blocking entire roads in our hood.

We lost power for about 10 hours.

I've seen a lot more water in our dry creek from just heavy regular rain storms, we only had a foot or so flowing thru at the peak. Have seen almost 5 feet in it from just your vanilla spring rain storms.

Since power was out, I wound up having to cook dinner on the BBQ pit. That was about the most of the inconvenience. I feel bad for those who got it worse but am thankful we got thru as we did.

 

[Coiled]

Conditions have deteriorated significantly while uploading, Lord willing I'll be back later.

- Not gonna lie, I was scared but, all tolled it coulda been a helluva a lot worse!
- Thankfully no property damage and now I know where my metal roof needs a few more screws.
- I have failed miserably to properly exercise the generator but thanks to Stabil and running the carb dry before storage, it started 1st pull. Yeah!
- A neighbor at the end of my power line had a tree removed just last week leaving her only one massive pine and you'll never guess where it fell. Yep, right between the last two poles, fortunately missing our 'hood owned wastewater plant. Since that line affects 10 homes max, we may be near the bottom for service restoration.
- After the storm I spoke to a weekender who was frantically headed out on the water to look for his missing pontoon which was "tied up good" in a slip. 30sec later I spoke to his wife who said "I leave the keys in it because nothing ever happens around here but remove the depth finder, go figure".

It seems everyone who has posted escaped major damages or injuries and that's great. Be safe during the aftermath too.

 

[Rafe]

Imagine the early settlers in Texas. Every day was like this.

But with zero warning other than line-of-sight. Imagine Galveston in 1900. A Cat 4 with estimated sustained winds of 145 mph using the island as the X-ring on a target. Folks on the coast had the storm surge flooding them before they even saw the remarkably nasty skies. Nobody knows for certain, but estimates range from 6,000 to 8,000 dead in that storm.

Took some brass cajones to sail the Gulf, the Caribbean, and parts of the Atlantic back in the day, too. A sailboat in late August, 1880, from the Bahamas to Galveston? Yeah...I think I'll wait until winter or springtime.

 

[Coiled]

90.55% here.....

Does that mean I'm 9.45% worse off?

 

[dsgrey]

People are using the Whataburger app to see how widespread the power outages

 

[HKSig]

CenterPoint no longer shows outages. Guess I need the Whataburger app.