Pow­er out­ages are mount­ing along the Texas coast af­ter Beryl came ashore Mon­day and lashed Hous­ton with heavy rains and pow­er­ful winds as the storm moved in­land.

More than 1 mil­lion homes and busi­ness­es were with­out pow­er hours af­ter Beryl made land­fall, ac­cord­ing to Cen­ter­Point En­er­gy in Hous­ton. High wa­ters quick­ly be­gan to close streets across Hous­ton and flood warn­ings were in ef­fect across a wide stretch of the Texas coast.

The Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice ex­pect­ed Beryl to weak­en to a trop­i­cal storm Mon­day and a trop­i­cal de­pres­sion Tues­day, fore­cast­ing a turn to the north­east and in­crease in speed Mon­day night and Tues­day. The storm reached the U.S. af­ter leav­ing a trail of de­struc­tion over the last week in Mex­i­co and the Caribbean.

The storm’s cen­ter hit land as a Cat­e­go­ry 1 hur­ri­cane around 4 a.m. about 85 miles south­west of Hous­ton with top sus­tained winds of 80 mph (128.7 kph) while mov­ing north at 12 mph (19.3 kph), the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice re­port­ed. On Mon­day morn­ing, the storm had max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 75 mph (120 kph).

High wa­ters quick­ly be­gan clos­ing roads around Hous­ton, which was again un­der flood warn­ings af­ter heavy storms in re­cent months washed out neigh­bor­hoods and knocked out pow­er across the na­tion’s fourth-largest city.

More than 1,000 flights have been can­celed at Hous­ton’s two air­ports, ac­cord­ing to track­ing da­ta from FlightAware.

Beryl dumped soak­ing rains across Hous­ton af­ter com­ing ashore and was ex­pect­ed to bring dam­ag­ing winds in­to East Texas, near Louisiana, as the storm pushed north af­ter mak­ing land­fall.

“Beryl’s mov­ing in­land but this is not the end of the sto­ry yet,” said Jack Beven, se­nior hur­ri­cane spe­cial­ist at the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter.

Beryl strength­ened and be­came a hur­ri­cane again late Sun­day. The storm had weak­ened af­ter leav­ing a path of dead­ly de­struc­tion through parts of Mex­i­co and the Caribbean.

A hur­ri­cane warn­ing re­mains in ef­fect for the Texas coast from Mesquite Bay north to Port Bo­li­var, the cen­ter said.

The storm’s cen­ter is ex­pect­ed to move over east­ern Texas on Mon­day and then through the low­er Mis­sis­sip­pi Val­ley in­to the Ohio Val­ley on Tues­day and Wednes­day, the weath­er ser­vice said.

Peo­ple on the Texas coast board­ed up win­dows and left beach towns un­der an evac­u­a­tion or­der. As the storm neared the coast Sun­day, Texas of­fi­cials warned of pow­er out­ages and flood­ing but al­so ex­pressed wor­ry that not enough res­i­dents and beach va­ca­tion­ers in Beryl’s path had heed­ed warn­ings to leave.

“One of the things that kind of trig­ger our con­cern a lit­tle bit, we’ve looked at all of the roads leav­ing the coast and the maps are still green,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is serv­ing as the state’s act­ing gov­er­nor while Gov. Greg Ab­bott is trav­el­ling over­seas. “So we don’t see many peo­ple leav­ing.”

Trop­i­cal storm winds ex­tend­ed 115 miles (185 kilo­me­ters) from the cen­ter and the hur­ri­cane cen­ter warned res­i­dents to be pre­pared for pos­si­ble flash flood­ing in parts of mid­dle, up­per and east­ern Texas as well as Arkansas as the storm grad­u­al­ly turns to the north and then north­east lat­er Mon­day.

Along the Texas coast, many res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers took the typ­i­cal storm pre­cau­tions but al­so ex­pressed un­cer­tain­ty about the storm’s in­ten­si­ty.

In Port Lava­ca, Jim­my May fas­tened ply­wood over the win­dows of his elec­tri­cal sup­ply com­pa­ny and said he wasn’t con­cerned about the pos­si­ble storm surge. He re­called his busi­ness had es­caped flood­ing in a pre­vi­ous hur­ri­cane that brought a 20-foot (6-me­ter) storm surge.

“In town, you know, if you’re in the low-ly­ing ar­eas, ob­vi­ous­ly, you need to get out of there,” he said.

At the near­by ma­ri­na, Per­cy Roberts showed his neigh­bor Ken Waller how to prop­er­ly se­cure his boat as heavy winds rolled in from the bay Sun­day evening.

“This is ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to be the first hur­ri­cane I’m go­ing to be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing,” Waller said, not­ing he is a lit­tle ner­vous but feels safe fol­low­ing Roberts’ lead. “Pray for the best but ex­pect the worst, I guess.”

The ear­li­est storm to de­vel­op in­to a Cat­e­go­ry 5 hur­ri­cane in the At­lantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean on its way to Texas. The storm ripped off doors, win­dows and roofs with dev­as­tat­ing winds and storm surge fu­eled by the At­lantic’s record warmth.

Three times dur­ing its one week of life, Beryl has gained 35 mph (56 kph) in wind speed in 24 hours or less, the of­fi­cial weath­er ser­vice de­f­i­n­i­tion of rapid in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion.

Beryl’s ex­plo­sive growth in­to an un­prece­dent­ed ear­ly whop­per of a storm in­di­cates the hot wa­ter of the At­lantic and Caribbean and what the At­lantic hur­ri­cane belt can ex­pect for the rest of the storm sea­son, ex­perts said.

Texas of­fi­cials warned peo­ple along the en­tire coast­line to pre­pare for pos­si­ble flood­ing, heavy rain and wind. The hur­ri­cane warn­ing ex­tend­ed from Baf­fin Bay, south of Cor­pus Christi, to Sar­gent, south of Hous­ton.

Beryl lurked as an­oth­er po­ten­tial heavy rain event for Hous­ton, where storms in re­cent months have knocked out pow­er across the na­tion’s fourth-largest city and flood­ed neigh­bor­hoods. A flash flood watch was in ef­fect for a wide swath of the Texas coast, where fore­cast­ers ex­pect­ed Beryl to dump as much as 10 inch­es (25 cen­time­ters) of rain in some ar­eas.

Po­ten­tial storm surges be­tween 4 and 7 feet (1.22 and 2.13 me­ters) above ground lev­el were fore­cast around Matagor­da. The warn­ings ex­tend­ed to the same coastal ar­eas where Hur­ri­cane Har­vey came ashore in 2017 as a Cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane, far more pow­er­ful than Beryl’s ex­pect­ed in­ten­si­ty by the time the storm reach­es land­fall.

Those look­ing to catch a flight out of the area found a clos­ing win­dow for air trav­el as Beryl moved clos­er. Hun­dreds of flights from Hous­ton’s two ma­jor com­mer­cial air­ports were de­layed by midafter­noon Sun­day and dozens more can­celed, ac­cord­ing to FlightAware da­ta.

In Cor­pus Christi, of­fi­cials asked vis­i­tors to cut their trips short and re­turn home ear­ly if pos­si­ble. Res­i­dents were ad­vised to se­cure homes by board­ing up win­dows if nec­es­sary and us­ing sand­bags to guard against pos­si­ble flood­ing.

The White House said Sun­day that the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency had sent emer­gency re­spon­ders, search-and-res­cue teams, bot­tled wa­ter and oth­er re­sources along the coast.

Sev­er­al coastal coun­ties called for vol­un­tary evac­u­a­tions in low-ly­ing ar­eas that are prone to flood­ing. Lo­cal of­fi­cials al­so banned beach camp­ing and urged tourists trav­el­ing on the Fourth of Ju­ly hol­i­day week­end to move recre­ation­al ve­hi­cles from coastal parks.

Beryl bat­tered Mex­i­co as a Cat­e­go­ry 2 hur­ri­cane last week, top­pling trees but caus­ing no in­juries or deaths be­fore weak­en­ing to a trop­i­cal storm as it moved across the Yu­catan Penin­su­la.

Be­fore hit­ting Mex­i­co, Beryl wrought de­struc­tion in Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines. Three peo­ple were re­port­ed dead in Grena­da, three in St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Ja­maica.

Gon­za­lez re­port­ed from McAllen, Texas. As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters Margery A. Beck in Om­a­ha, Ne­bras­ka, Han­nah Schoen­baum in Salt Lake City and Julie Walk­er in New York con­tributed.

BY  MARK VAN­CLEAVE AND VA­LERIE GON­ZA­LEZ

MATAGOR­DA, Texas (AP)