East Texas emergency officials prepare for potential Hurricane Beryl impact

Beryl weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm Friday, but there's still potential for severe weather in our area.
Published: Jul. 5, 2024 at 7:04 PM CDT|Updated: Jul. 5, 2024 at 7:05 PM CDT

NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KTRE) - Heavy rain is expected throughout East Texas over the weekend as Hurricane Beryl moves towards the Texas state coast.

On Friday morning, Beryl hit Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 2 hurricane.

As of Friday afternoon, Beryl had weakened to a tropical storm.

It could regain strength in the gulf and is expected to hit near northeastern Mexico and southeast Texas either late Sunday or early Monday.

“Biggest thing we’re going to deal with is going to be rain that will coming in when it does come in,” said Rusk County Emergency Management Coordinator Patrick Dooley.

He encourages East Texans to be prepared and recommends keeping water, non-perishable food, and medication on standby.

“Anything that you can do that can self-sustain you and your family for those three days until we can tell if we need help or we have help coming in to get to you,” he said.

With the impact still being undetermined, the county will keep monitoring weather conditions.

“We’ll start out today watching and pushing out more events. Letting everybody know this is what we have going on, this is what we know,” said Dooley.

American Red Cross executive director for the Southeast and Deep East Texas chapter. Natalie Warren said they’ve remained busy over the past two months with East Texas floods.

“We are the most impacted here in this chapter throughout the Texas gulf coast region. We get hit before hurricane season even gets here,” said Warren.

The American Red Cross is preparing for potential damage from Beryl.

Crews are pre-staging shelters across the Gulf and Deep East Texas region.

“To make sure that we have a team that’s here if we are, you know, presented with anything,” said Warren.