As Beryl expected to regain hurricane strength, Texas braces for impact

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 centre ha