At least seven people, including a Houston police officer, were killed when Hurricane Beryl battered coastal Texas and parts of Louisiana, authorities said, some were killed by falling trees and others were swept away by rising floodwaters.
As Gulf Coast states continue to work to recover from damage caused by the Category 1 storm, Houston police confirmed Monday that information security officer Russell Richardson, 54, was among the storm’s casualties.
Authorities said the officer “tragically lost his life after being caught in rising floodwaters.” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick previously said the officer drowned in an underpass on his way to work.
Along with Richardson, Harris County authorities confirmed that a 53-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman were killed in two separate incidents in the Houston area when trees fell on their homes.
The 74-year-old victim was later identified as Maria Laredo, a grandmother who lived with her son and daughter-in-law.
Another woman in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, suffered the same fate when a tree fell on her home, according to the local sheriff’s office.
Authorities in Montgomery County, Texas, confirmed three other people were killed, including a man who struck a tree while driving a tractor and two people whose bodies were found inside a tent in Magnolia.
Beryl, the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record this season, battered a wide swath of the Caribbean and, although it had weakened from its peak strength, struck Texas, bringing devastating flooding and wind gusts of up to 80 mph to the Southeast Coast.
The storm left more than 2.7 million Texas homes without power, and only about half had power restored by Wednesday.
The storm has weakened to a tropical depression, but millions of Americans living in areas from Arkansas to Michigan remain under flood warnings as the storm moves northeast.
Beryl is expected to bring up to 5 inches of rain to the region, according to the National Weather Service, with severe weather expected in parts of western Kentucky, southern Illinois and Indiana.
Remnants of the storm are expected to bring rain to Western New York late Wednesday night into Thursday.
With post wire
