Most power restored, cleanup underway

The fallout from Hurricane Beryl is finally easing up across the county, as power has been restored to most homes and businesses while many continue to clean up debris.

The Cleveland area took the biggest brunt of the storm, with many residents without power for nearly a week.

“It really was great to see the whole community come together and work together to support each other,” said City Manager Scott Swigert.

During that time, efforts went into overdrive to provide places to cool down, food, water, and supplies needed for the cleanup from the storm.

Swigert applauded the community, including churches, local elected officials, businesses, and the school district, for coming together.

“It’s just neighbors helping neighbors, which is great,” Swigert said.

Swigert credited Entergy for providing generators that helped with cooling stations, as did the city of Dayton, who he said offered much-needed generators that allowed the city to keep infrastructure online during the extended outages.

“We were struggling to keep our lift stations pumped out and keep our water towers and water storage tanks full of water,” Swigert said.

By Wednesday morning, most of the power supplied to the area by Entergy Texas had been restored in Cleveland and most of the county.

SHECO customers across the county also had power restored and were able to return to some semblance of normalcy, while county residents with CenterPoint were also back up and running.

Now, Liberty, Dayton, and Cleveland officials are asking residents to have debris cut into manageable sizes and stacked along the street for pickup in the coming days.

Residents in unincorporated parts of the county are asked to stack debris on the roadway but to separate it into types.

• Vegetation

• Drywall, flooring, and appliance removal

• Tarping roofs

• Mold mitigation According to Liberty County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Hergemueller, crews will make several passes but pick up the materials by type.