One year later, survey shows Hurricane Beryl's damage is still felt by Harris County residents

Over one year after Hurricane Beryl, 1 in 8 Houston-area residents reported their lives were still “very” or “somewhat” disrupted by Beryl, according to an Oct. 2 report from the Houston Population Research Center at the Kinder Institute.

According to the report, Beryl caused an estimated $2.5 billion to $4.5 billion in property damage.

Looking back

Hurricane Beryl reached Matagorda, Texas, as a Category 1 storm July 8, 2024, Community Impact previously reported. Beryl then made its way through Houston, leaving millions of people without power.

In Harris County, over 4,400 homes were damaged due to Hurricane Beryl, and about 200 trees were knocked down, according to previous Community Impact reporting.

Current situation

According to the Kinder Institute report, there was a slight rise in continuing disruption compared to late 2024. A large portion of the uptick came from residents with an annual household income of less than $25,000.

Major Latin, the disaster case management program manager for Cypress-based Hope Disaster Recovery, said while many residents made some fixes after the storm, they haven’t received enough federal or community aid for more costly repairs.

“We’ve come across people who are in different stages of their recovery,” Latin said in the report. “Maybe they’ve received some [Federal Emergency Management Agency] money upfront and they were able to repair a part of their roof, but they weren’t able to repair interior damage. Or maybe they were able to get their fence fixed, but there’s still something else that needs to be done.”

“Now, a year down the road, residents are having to grapple with the reality of repairs that are still needed, credit card bills from unexpected hotel rooms or refilling the fridge that are still unpaid, and their expectations that these things should already be resolved but they’re not,” Dan Potter, co-director of the research center and lead researcher on the survey work, said in the report.

Going forward

According to the report, there is still a funding gap to fill. FEMA data analyzed by the Kinder Institute shows about 459,000 Harris County households were eligible to receive about $495 million through the agency’s Individuals and Households Program.

FEMA has delivered the majority of its disaster aid, according to the report. Still, the report states that about $150 million in federal aid from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will make its way to Houston and Harris County for housing repairs.

However, as of early 2025, federal estimates suggested there was about $800 million in repairs needed between the destruction from Beryl and the May 2024 derecho, according to the Kinder Institute report.

Also of note

According to Community Impact reporting, the Public Utility Commission of Texas recently authorized CenterPoint Energy to issue a customer rate increase—totaling approximately $1.2 billion—to cover repair and recovery costs from Hurricane Beryl and two other storms that affected the Greater Houston area.