By Shelby Shank
Field Editor

Matagorda County farmer Richard Beyer is dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, which tore through the Texas coast earlier this week.

Many are still without electricity in his area.

“Several people have electricity, but there’s still areas that don’t. That’s probably the biggest concern right now,” Beyer said. “There’s not a whole lot of building damage, but there’s a lot of debris from trees and downed fences. But the biggest concern right now is people waiting to get electricity back.”

Beyer and his family took precautions before Hurricane Beryl hit Monday morning. They boarded up windows and gathered supplies as heavy rains came in Sunday evening.

By midnight, the storm’s winds began to intensify.

“They were pretty strong winds, actually a little stronger than what we anticipated, and I think that’s because we kind of took a direct hit,” Beyer said. “The center of the storm came right up our alley. Around 4 a.m., that’s when the center of the storm seemed to cross over us, and things kind of calmed down a little bit.”

Beyer and his family experienced a power outage early Monday morning, lasting until late that evening.

Once the center of the storm passed them, Beyer said the winds began to pick up again, along with steady rain.

“I think we ended up with somewhere between six to seven inches of rain,” he said.

Beyer grows corn, cotton, milo and raises cattle.

Most of the bolls on his cotton weren’t open yet, which helped protect the lint. But other cotton farmers in the area weren’t as lucky.

“There are some farms that have some cotton open, but mostly just got blown over, and we think that it’ll stand back up,” he said. “It’s going to be twisted up a little bit and probably be a little more difficult whenever it gets time to pick just because the plants aren’t going to be standing straight up.”

Beyer remains hopeful about the cotton crop. As for the corn, the tops were broken out a week away from being harvested.

“Some of the corn got leaned over really bad, maybe 45 degrees. I haven’t seen any that’s blown over, just flat on the ground. But we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to get in there and salvage the corn crop,” he said.

Beyer had just finished harvesting milo on Friday before the storm, but other farmers in the area were just getting started and now face blown-over crops.

Despite the damages, Beyer is grateful Hurricane Beryl wasn’t as bad as predicted.

“I don’t want to make light of it, because it’s still a hurricane, but it could have been a lot worse,” he said. “We’re pretty grateful and fortunate that the damage wasn’t any worse than what it was.”

In the meantime, Beyer and his family are busy helping neighbors clean up and are optimistic about the community’s resilience.

“It seems like everybody’s going to be able to bounce back from this pretty quick. It’s just getting the electricity turned back on for a lot of people,” Beyer said.