Hurricane Beryl’s path across western Houston area made it a particularly destructive Category 1 hurricane – Houston Public Media

David Smith

Why did a Category 1 hurricane cause so much devastation in a part of Houston that is used to tropical storms?

Location, location, location.

Hurricane Beryl hit the city in the most direct way in decades. It made landfall near Matagorda Bay early Monday morning before heading north, toppling thousands of trees and causing widespread deaths and flooding and power outages. The eye of the storm passed over the west side of the metro area, and the heaviest wind damage from a hurricane typically occurs northeast of the eye, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Amaryllis Cotto.

Meteorologist Eric Berger, editor of Space City Weather, said Beryl’s landing location was “close to worst-case scenario.”

“The railroad is very important in terms of wind damage in the Houston metro area,” Berger said. “All of Harris County was in the worst possible position for the effects of Beryl.”

Four days after the storm, the region continues to feel the effects of a hurricane that knocked out power to more than 2.2 million homes, schools and businesses. More than 900,000 people were still without power Friday afternoon, as a heat advisory was in effect, and a CenterPoint Energy official told the Public Utility Commission of Texas Thursday that about 500,000 people were expected to be without power next week.

RELATED: Cooling centers, shelters open in Houston area after Hurricane Beryl

CenterPoint, which provides electricity to much of the region, said power lines damaged by falling trees were one of the biggest factors. Company officials also said the storm proved unpredictable because its path veered east before hitting the region.

“It did more damage than expected,” said Eloy Montemayor, general manager of LaKing’s Confectionary in Galveston, which lost power for nearly 24 hours.

Berger said Beryl was one of the three largest wind events to hit the Houston area in recent decades, along with Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and Hurricane Ike in 2008. Alicia was a compact Category 3 storm that also passed over the west side of the metro area, shattering windows in downtown skyscrapers, while Ike was a large Category 2 hurricane that made landfall in Galveston before passing east of Houston.

Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media

Beryl’s winds weren’t as strong as other storms, with sustained winds of 64 mph at Surfside Beach, near where it made landfall along the Gulf Coast, and gusts reaching 97 mph, Cotto said. But it was just as threatening, Berger said, both because of its path relative to the city and because it intensified quickly before landfall and maintained that energy as it reached the metro area.

“If Ike had made landfall like Beryl did, the conditions in the Houston area would have been catastrophic,” Berger said. “We wouldn’t have had power outages for days or weeks. We could have had power outages for weeks or months, and significant structural damage to homes.”

RELATED: Houston Mayor Whitmire says Beryl exposed gaps in city’s storm preparedness

In that sense, Berger said, “the harsh reality is that Houston has yet to experience a major storm.” The deadly derecho that swept through the city in mid-May brought winds of more than 100 mph — while causing significant damage and power outages for more than 900,000 people — but it affected a relatively small geographic area.

The Houston area has also dealt with other major flooding events in recent years, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017. That storm made landfall near Corpus Christi as a Category 4 hurricane before drifting northeast toward Houston and dumping the heaviest rainfall in U.S. history.

The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November, is still quite early. According to the latest forecast from Colorado State University, there could be as many as 25 named storms.

“Beryl was a severe storm, but it was very, very far from the worst-case scenario,” Berger said. “We’re going to take a break in the tropics for about a week. Between now and early August, we’re going to have to pay close attention to what’s happening. Hopefully nothing else happens, but we still have two and a half months of the season to really pay attention to it.”