Tropical Storm Beryl sped across the Texas coast on Monday, leaving more than 2 million people and businesses without power in the Houston area and unleashing heavy rains that prompted dozens of high-water rescues. The fast-moving tempest threatened to carve a harsh path over several more states in coming days. Within hours after Beryl swept ashore as a Category 1 hurricane, it had weakened into a tropical storm, far less powerful than the Category 5 behemoth that tore a deadly path of destruction through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean last weekend. But the winds and rains of the fast-moving storm were still powerful enough to knock down hundreds of trees that had already been teetering in water-saturated earth and to strand dozens of cars on flooded roadways. At least two people were killed when trees fell on homes, and the National Hurricane Center said damaging winds and flash flooding would continue as Beryl pushes inland. A third person, a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department, was killed when he was trapped in flood waters under a highway overpass, Houston Mayor John Whitmire said. There were no immediate reports of widespread structural damage, however. Texas officials say restoring electricity will take days. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said CenterPoint Energy was bringing in thousands of additional workers to help get the lights turned back on quicker. He said the storm toppled 10 transmission lines and that many of the outages were caused by fallen trees. The fast-moving tempest threatened to carve a harsh path over several more states in coming days. More than 2.2 million homes and businesses were without power around Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, after Beryl blew through, according to the CenterPoint Energy utility. For many, it was an all-too-familiar experience: Powerful storms had just ripped through the area in May, killing eight people, leaving nearly 1 million without power and flooding numerous streets. Residents without power after Beryl were doing their best. “We haven’t really slept,” said Eva Costancio as she gazed at a large tree that had fallen across electric lines in her neighborhood in the Houston suburb of Rosenberg. Costancio, 67, said already been without power for several hours and worried that food in her refrigerator would be spoiled. “We are struggling to have food and losing that food would be difficult,” she said. Houston and Harris County officials said power crews would be sent into the area to restore service as quickly as possible, an urgent priority for homes also left without air conditioning in the middle of summer. Temperatures, which had cooled slightly with the storm, were expected to reach back into the 90s as early as Tuesday. “While these efforts are full steam ahead, we want residents to know and prepare for a possible multi-day power outage,” Galveston city officials said on Facebook. “The estimated timeline is anywhere from 72 hours to two weeks in parts of the island.” Beryl’s rains pounded Houston and other areas of the coast on Monday, reclosing streets in neighborhoods that had already been washed out by previous storms. Television stations on Monday broadcast the dramatic rescue of a man who had climbed to the roof of his pickup truck after it got trapped in fast-flowing waters. Emergency crews used an extension ladder from a […]