Many coastal areas of Texas in the US have been evacuated following warnings of flooding and power outages as Beryl approaches, which strengthened into a Category 1 storm last night. The earliest Category 5 hurricane hit Jamaica, Grenada last week , Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, causing the death of at least 11 people and severe property damage.
“The strongest winds accompanying ‘Beryl’ are blowing at nearly 120 kilometers per hour. According to these figures, Beryl became a cyclone. We expect it to strengthen further before reaching the Texas coast,” the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest update.
The NHC also warned of the possibility of tornadoes in some areas of Texas, including Houston, a city of 2.3 million people that is in the path of the cyclone. “We have to take Beryl very seriously,” said the city’s mayor, John Whitmire.
The residents of Houston should be aware that “the conditions in which you sleep tonight will be different from the conditions in which you wake up tomorrow morning”, he emphasized.
