Texas is receiving federal aid for Hurricane Beryl later than needed because state leaders were slow to request an official disaster declaration from the White House, President Joe Biden told the Houston Chronicle Tuesday.

With Gov. Greg Abbott out of the country on an economic development trip in Asia, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has served as acting governor amid the storm, making him responsible for putting in the state’s request for aid.

A series of videos posted online Monday and Tuesday reveal the brutal aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, the first major summer storm of 2024.

Hurricane Beryl made landfall in the early hours Monday morning along the Texas coast, bringing “life-threatening” conditions to millions of Americans. Footage shared online shows the aftermath of the storm, which is believed to have killed eight people, according to the BBC.

Restoring power to millions of Texans slammed by the deadly and destructive storm Beryl could take days or even weeks, posing a dangerous scenario for residents without air conditioning as triple-digit heat index temperatures hit the state.

Beryl slammed into southern Texas as a Category 1 hurricane Monday, knocking out power to more than 2.5 million homes and leaving at least eight people dead in Texas and Louisiana.

More than 2.1 million people throughout Texas were still without power Tuesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.

Recovery efforts for Hurricane Beryl are underway after the storm brought damaging winds and heavy rainfall to Southeast Texas Monday. 

The category 1 hurricane killed at least seven people as of Tuesday morning, Harris County Officials confirmed. 

As CenterPoint works to restore electricity to more than 1 million customers, high temperatures are expected Tuesday and throughout the rest of the week. 

Chemical pollution emitting from the East Palestine, Ohio, train crash in 2023 rained down on 16 different states, according to a study released Wednesday.

A Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and crashed in East Palestine in February 2023, sending plumes of black smoke rising over Ohio and Pennsylvania. The smoke carried the chemicals and polluted 16 states, spreading over roughly 540,000 square miles of land, according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters.

Over a third of the counties in Texas are under a disaster declaration after extreme weather battered much of the state Saturday night and into Sunday.

At least 18 people have died in the storms due to the severe weather across the central U.S., which included multiple tornados. 

Gov. Gregg Abbott (R) made a disaster declaration for 108 counties in the state as of Sunday. He said at least seven people, including four children, died due to the storms and over 100 were injured.

Wildfires in Canada have roared back to life, sending harmful smoke into the northern United States — an unwelcome reminder of last summer’s historic fire season that also repeatedly sent plumes of noxious haze southward.

Almost a year to the date from the explosive start to the 2023 fire season, hundreds of fires have erupted in Canada, including a dozen major and out-of-control blazes. At least 500,000 acres (200,000 hectares) of land have burned so far, much of it in recent days.

Canada's wildfire season has erupted as dozens of blazes burn in the country's western provinces, and smoke from those fires is choking the skies over the Upper Midwest early this week.

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota claimed the worst air quality in America on Monday after winds carried the smoke southeastward into the northern U.S.

Hazy skies were first seen Sunday over parts of northern Minnesota before spreading farther south into the Twin Cities overnight.

Central and northern Wisconsin are under an air quality advisory due to Canadian wildfire smoke, according to the National Weather Service in Sullivan.

In those portions of the state, people can see smoke in the sky, and in some areas, on ground level, said Mark Gehring, NWS meteorologist.

Visibilities are ranging from 4 to 7 miles in parts of west central and northern Wisconsin, as well as southern Minnesota, Gehring said.