Beryl bears down on Texas: State is lashed with rain and wind as residents race to evacuate - with storm set to hit hurricane strength within hours

Hurricane Beryl is set to slam Texas with a combination of storm surge, rainfall, and damaging wind gusts Sunday, officials said. 

Dangerous flash flooding is possible in some areas, where as much as 8 to 12 inches of rainfall expected.

A few showers have already been spotted, spurring evacuations for some coastal cities like those in Refugio County. There, towns like Bayside, Refugio, and Woodsboro issued mandatory evacuations - accounting for some 6,700 residents.

The orders come a little less than a week after Beryl made history as the earliest storm to develop in into a Category 5 over the Atlantic, as winds and storm surge fueled by the ocean's record warmth. 

It most recently savaged Mexico after causing at least 11 deaths in the Caribbean, and by Sunday evening, will make landfall in the US. More than six feet of storm surge could be pushed into areas north of the impact zone near the coastal city of Brownsville.

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'We're seeing the outer bands of Beryl approach the Texas coast now and the weather should be going downhill especially this afternoon and evening,' Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, warned earlier in the day. 

'People should definitely be in their safe space by nightfall and we're expecting the hurricane to make landfall somewhere in the middle Texas coast overnight,' he added. 

A staffer at an Ace Hardware in Corpus Christi, just north of the impact zone, added how foot-traffic has  been nonstop for the past three days as a result, with customers snapping up tarps, rope, duct tape, sandbags and generators in bulk.

'They're just worried about the wind, the rain,' Elizabeth Landry said Saturday. 'They're wanting to prepare just in case.'

As Landry indicated, no official evacuation order was given to Corpus Christi, unlike its neighbors to the south in Refugio County.

That said, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is out of town in Taiwan, issued a preemptive disaster declaration for 121 counties - Nueces County included.

As a result, officials in coastal Corpus Christi asked those visiting for the Fourth to return home early if possible, as the city's some 316,000 permanent residents were told to secure their homes.

Boarded up windows and sandbags to slow the forecasted floodwater's progress were seen as a result, especially in more low-lying areas of the city and others set on the Gulf of Mexico.

Poised to be one of the first - and hardest-hit US victims of the stubborn storm, Corpus Christi was joined by several other coastal cities in calling for voluntary evacuations 

Towns north of Corpus Christi all the way to Sargent, just south of Houston, issued identical orders, banning beach camping and urging tourists traveling on the Fourth of July holiday weekend to move recreational vehicles from coastal parks.

Further south in places like Brownsville, the orders were not optional, due to those cities' proximity to the slice of land where the storm will make landfall, after refueling over the Gulf and hitting parts of Mexico.

While no deaths have been recorded yet in the Central American country, it knocked out power and put authorities on high-alert despite devolving into a less-dangerous Category-2.

Having since picked up steam over the infamous body of water, the storm is once again a hurricane - one of the highest degree.

It is in this Category-5 state that the storm will slam into southern Texas around sometime Sunday night, officials said - much worse than when it toppled trees as a tropical storm when it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula.

Now on a collision course with the southern part of the US instead of Mexico for a second time, the storm has already spurred a mass deployment of emergency responders, search-and-rescue teams, and other resources along the coast.

Some gusty winds and slight rains have been seen since, but by nightfall, Brownsville will be battered by the southern part of the swirling storm, as Corpus Christie and cities just south of Houston will be subject to even more severe weather.

There, the hurricane will make its final landfall over a range that spans hundreds of miles, 

If and when it happens, Beryl will become just the 10th hurricane to hit Texas in July since 1851 - and the fourth in the past 25 years, officials said.

That said, Beryl's path remains unpredictable, and state authorities in Texas are warning people - particularly in coastal areas - accordingly.

'While Texans take time to enjoy the holiday weekend with family and friends, it’s important to stay weather aware, pay close attention to the rapidly-changing forecasts,' Texas Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said in a statement.

'[D]on’t be caught without an emergency plan.'  

'If I lived in Texas, and I have lived in Texas, this would be a storm that I would be watching closely,' FOX Weather Meteorologist Britta Merwin added.

'The possible impacts would be Sunday into Monday.'

On Monday, Beryl strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane for the first time, and by early Tuesday it was creating record-breaking 165 mph maximum sustained winds.

The small island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were among those hit, with at least one person dead and more casualties likely as officials continue to probe flooded areas and wreckage.

In Grenada, at least three people have died, after Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said an unspecified number of homes had been destroyed by the "Armageddon-like" storm. 

Venezuela was also hit by heavy flooding that caused the deaths of at least, as four more remain missing as a result of the storm, the country's president, Nicolás Maduro, said. 

In total, at least eleven people are known to have died as a result.