Beryl Sparks Power Outages For Over 2 Million, Disrupts Port And Energy Operations 

Hurricane Beryl battered Texas on Monday, leaving over 2 million homes and businesses without power. The storm unleashed torrential rains and high winds that forced major port closures, disrupted some of the nation’s largest oil/gas producers, and sparked travel delays at surrounding airports. 

As now Tropical Depression Beryl moves out of Texas, here is a look at some of the rainfall totals 🌀

WIDESPREAD heavy rain of 6-10”+ across the greater Houston area, with vast amounts of flood warnings/advisories ☔️🌧️#HOU #TXwx #Beryl #BAMwx pic.twitter.com/2NlYzy6gZ1

— BAM Weather (BAMWX) (@bamwxcom) July 9, 2024

Texas officials warned residents, especially those in the Houston metro area, that it could take days to restore power after Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday morning. 

Hurricane Beryl’s death toll has now reached 7 people in the Houston area.

3 people were killed by fallen trees, one died in a fire, two drowned, and a public servant died after being trapped in his vehicle in floodwaters on the way to work. @FOX4 #txwx pic.twitter.com/QPpy3S37Dd

— Peyton Yager (@peytonyager) July 9, 2024

According to the power tracking website PowerOutage.us, 2.3 million homes and businesses in eastern Texas had lost power. 

About 85% of the customers served by the Houston area’s top electric utility—CenterPoint Energy—lost power on Monday. By early Tuesday morning, about a million homes and businesses had seen their power restored as the utility deployed 10,000 workers to fix transmission and power lines. 

“I do not have power at my house — I know what it’s like,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire on Monday night. 

It’s critical to note that Houston is a major energy port in the Western Hemisphere and also critical for US petrochemical production. Other surrounding ports were disrupted, and many of these are connected to global shipping lanes.

Reuters noted, “Oil refining activity slowed and some production sites were evacuated in the state that is the nation’s biggest producer of US oil and natural gas.” 

Here’s more on the gas and shipping disruptions from Reuters: 

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. The Corpus Christi Ship Channel has re-opened, while the Port of Houston was projected to resume operations on Tuesday afternoon.

Some oil producers, including Shell, opens new tab and Chevron, opens new tab, evacuated personnel from their Gulf of Mexico offshore production platforms ahead of the storm.

Marathon Petroleum Corp’s, opens new tab refinery in Texas City, Texas was hit by a power interruption on Monday amid the storm, the company said in a statement.

As for ports, Seatrade Maritime reported earlier that Port of Houston and the Port of Galveston will remain closed today, while the Port of Corpus Christi has reopened

Beryl was a close call for the Biden administration because if the storm knocked out refineries, it would’ve sent gasoline prices at the pump to the politically sensitive $4 level.