Clean up and assessment of damage is underway across Southeast Texas following Hurricane Beryl. The Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management are asking citizens that need to report damage to make that report at damage.tdem.gov.
Highway 87 on the Bolivar Peninsula and the ferry leading into Galveston are open. One boat is in operation at the ferry. Motorists are asked to use caution on the highway through the area as the storm pushed concrete barriers onto the road.
Checking Entergy-Texas outage map as of 4:00 this morning, nearly 224,000 customers were without power with the majority in the western part of their district, primarily in Montgomery County. Jefferson County had just over 12,000 outages, Orange County just under 4,000, and Hardin County over 2.200. You can get updates on Entergy-Texas’ outage map.
Due to power outages and the assessment of damage, Lamar University in Beaumont will be closed today. The campus is expected to reopen tomorrow.
LT. Governor Dan Patrick has added 81 Texas counties in the state as disaster declarations. Southeast Texas counties include Jefferson, Orange, Hardin, Newton, Jasper, Liberty, and Tyler. A total of 121 Texas counties are under disaster declaration. Some of these counties have already been under declarations from earlier storms. Patrick is serving as acting governor in an emergency with Governor Greg Abbott out of the country.