Storm surge debris covers roads in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl

Cleanup is just beginning after Beryl slammed the southeast coast of Texas, near Matagorda, on July 8.

Transcript

00:00We want to take you live. You can see our team coverage, one in Longview, Texas, for more in our

00:07top story here as we continue to track Beryl. And Aaron Jajak is joining us. Extreme Storm Chaser

00:12Aaron Jajak in Sargent, Texas. Aaron, what have you been experiencing here today and how things

00:18evolved where you are? Just give people an idea of where Sargent is for perspective as well.

00:23Yeah, so Sargent, Texas is on the eastern part of Matagorda Bay, just to the southwest of Houston,

00:32Texas. So, you know, right along the coast there, it was just a little east of where the storm made

00:39landfall in Matagorda. So, you know, we had significant impacts there. We were on that

00:44eastern eyewall and it was, you know, we were in it for quite a while. We were in that eastern

00:50eyewall for a couple of hours as the storm came ashore. You know, it made an official landfall,

00:55was near Matagorda on the western side, just to my west, about 15-20 miles. But yeah, so, you know,

01:01it was a significant impact there in Sargent. And, you know, I think Sargent was probably,

01:08you know, I've traveled around today. I checked out Sargent. Obviously, I was there. I checked out

01:13Lake Jackson. And I've also checked out Matagorda. And I believe Sargent likely took the brunt of the

01:20storm as far as wind damage. Significant wind damage compared to, let's say, Matagorda, where

01:28actually it looked like the surge debris that was left over in Matagorda was worse than what I saw

01:33over there in Sargent. You know, and I think that has a lot to do with, you know, obviously the

01:38orientation of the winds. In Sargent, we were getting more of those onshore flow. And in

01:43Matagorda, it was more of an offshore flow. And so that probably had some differences there in

01:48how much damage, you know, making more damage in Sargent versus Matagorda. Okay, that makes good

01:54sense, Aaron. And moving forward, I know a lot are still without power. It's going to be pretty

01:59steamy out there. So that's a big concern. What are your plans? Are you basically wrapping it up?

02:04Obviously, the conditions have really improved there for the area around the coast. Yeah,

02:11things have improved drastically in just the past six, seven hours. You know, I couldn't even get

02:17out to Sargent Beach earlier this morning. You know, all that water was over the road, preventing

02:23you from being able to get to the beach. All that water has receded. And now all that's left over,

02:27and most of these places that had surge over the road is that surge debris. And that's being

02:31cleared out. People are back in their homes. Actually, quite a few people stayed in their

02:36homes. And they're, you know, everybody's out cleaning up the debris, forgetting their lives

02:42back in place. But, you know, they are without power here, and they'll probably be without power

02:45for, you know, probably a week, possibly. Yeah, seeing 2.8 million addresses in Texas without

02:51power right now. It's a big, big number. Aaron Jayjack, Extreme Storm Chaser. Aaron, thanks so

02:56much for your work, whether you're safe and that you were able to share all of this with us

02:59throughout the course of the storm there, beginning, middle, and end in Sargent, Texas.

03:04Thank you. All right. Thanks, Aaron. Let's take a look at the ongoing tornado threat. We have nine

03:08separate, at least to last count, nine separate tornado warnings associated with this between

03:14an area as far north as the Arkansas-Louisiana line to areas all the way down into east-central

03:21Texas and far western parts of Louisiana as well. Now, there are three different warnings that are

03:27popping up in that magenta color. Those are confirmed tornado warnings. Sometimes radar

03:32confirmed, where we really, really believe that these are indeed producing a tornado at this time.

03:39The one cell that has really produced the longest sheer track, I'm going to pull this out here,

03:43we've seen a really long, now 100-mile-long path of at least rotation. Now, it probably wasn't a

03:51tornado continuously on the ground that whole time, but there has been at least a tornado threat

03:56for over 100 miles here with a few of these cells.