Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Not a good start
Tropical storm nearing landfall, could drench previously weather-hit areas
Jeff Williams gets ready Monday for an attempt to move his vehicle off a flooded road in Surfside, Texas, where a tidal surge hit ahead of Tropical Storm Beta’s expected landfall.
HOUSTON — As Tropical Storm Beta neared the Texas coast Monday, the biggest unknown was how much rainfall it could produce in areas that have already seen their share of damaging weather during a busy hurricane season. Flash flooding was also possible in Arkansas and Mississippi as the system moves farther inland later in the week.
Beta’s winds were weakening as it got closer to making landfall sometime Monday evening and the storm was not expected to strengthen into a hurricane. But its path along the Texas coast over the next couple of days once it gets inland could produce bands of showers with heavy rainfall, forecasters said. Rain from Beta was already coming down Monday in the Houston area.
“This still is probably the most uncertain part of the forecast,” Dan Reilly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Houston-Galveston office, said about rainfall from Beta.
Earlier predictions of up to 20 inches in some areas were downgraded Monday to up to 15 inches. Texas coastal counties were most likely to see 4 to 6 inches, with 2 to 4 inches farther inland, Reilly said.
Forecasters and officials reassured residents that Beta was not expected to be another Hurricane Harvey or Tropical Storm Imelda. Harvey in 2017 dumped more than 50 inches of rain on Houston and caused $125 billion in damage in Texas. Imelda, which hit Southeast Texas last year, was one of the wettest cyclones on record.
Beta’s maximum sustained winds were 45 mph Monday afternoon. The storm was moving west-northwest at 7 mph, forecasters said. It was about 45 miles southeast of Port O’Connor, Texas.
Storm surge up to 4 feet was forecast from Port Aransas to Sabine Pass in Texas.
After Beta makes landfall, it is expected to move northeast along the coast and head into Louisiana sometime midweek, forecasters said.
In Galveston, an island city southeast of Houston, there was already some street flooding from rising tides and part of a popular fishing pier collapsed due to strong waves.
Farther south on the Texas coast, Maria Serrano Culpepper along with her two daughters and dogs left their home Sunday night as Beta was predicted to make landfall in nearby Matagorda Bay.
Culpepper said she didn’t want to be trapped in her home, three blocks from the beach, with wind, rain and possibly no electricity. She and her family evacuated to a friend’s home in nearby Victoria.
Culpepper said her home should be fine, as it’s on stilts 13 feet off the ground and was built to withstand strong storms.
“I’m feeling OK now. I had two nights without sleeping because I was worried about (Beta) being a Category 1 hurricane. I calmed down when the storm lost power,” said Culpepper, who works as an engineer at a nearby chemical plant.
On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 29 Texas counties ahead of Beta’s arrival.
Beta is forecast to dump heavy rain on the southwestern corner of Louisiana three weeks after the same area got pounded by Hurricane Laura. The rainfall and storm surge prompted Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards to declare a state of emergency.
Beta would be the ninth named storm to make landfall in the continental U.S. this year. That would tie a record set in 1916, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.