Texas coast braces for potential hit by Beryl, which is expected to regain hurricane strength

Texas officials Saturday were urging coastal residents to brace for a potential hit by Beryl as the storm is expected to regain hurricane strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

“We’re expecting the storm to make landfall somewhere on the Texas coast sometime Monday, if the current forecast is correct,” said Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Should that happen, it’ll most likely be a Category 1 hurricane.”

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

Texas officials warned the state's entire coastline to brace for possible flooding, heavy rain and wind as they wait for a more defined path of the storm. The hurricane center has issued hurricane and storm surge warnings from Baffin Bay south of Corpus Christi to San Luis Pass, less than 80 miles south of Houston.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling in Taiwan, issued a preemptive disaster declaration for 121 counties.

"Beryl is a determined storm, and incoming winds and potential flooding will pose a serious threat to Texans who are in Beryl’s path at landfall and as it makes its way across the state for the following 24 hours,” Patrick said in a statement Saturday,

Some Texas coastal cities called for voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas prone to flooding, banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling on the Fourth of July holiday weekend to move recreational vehicles from coastal parks.

Mitch Thames, a spokesman for Matagorda County, said Saturday that officials issued a voluntary evacuation request for the coastal areas of the county about 100 miles southwest of Houston to inform the large number of visitors in the area for the holiday weekend.

“I certainly don’t want to ruin the holiday weekend for our visitors. But at the same time, our No. 1 goal is the health and safety of all our visitors and of course our residents. I’m not so much worried about our residents. Those folks that live down there, they’re used to this. They get it,” Thames said.

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

In Refugio County, north of Corpus Christi along Texas' Gulf Coast, officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for its 6,700 residents Saturday.

On Saturday, Beryl was about 385 miles southeast of Corpus Christi and had top sustained winds of 60 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was moving west-northwest at 13 mph.

Before hitting Mexico and moving into the Gulf, Beryl had already spread destruction in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados this week. Three people have been reported dead in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Jamaica, officials said.

Associated Press writers Lozano repored from Houston, Vertuno from Austin, Texas. AP writers Mark Thiessen in Anchorage and Martín Silva in Tulum, Mexico, contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .