In Sugar Land, Texas, just outside of Houston, Beryl has dumped 5 to 10 inches of rain and knocked out power to most of the population, according to Mayor Joe Zimmerman.

"The hurricane passed almost right over us," Zimmerman told ABC News Live.

But he added, "We were ready."

"We had activated our emergency operations center yesterday at noon. We had staff on two, 12-hour shifts, and that staff was able to keep everything up and running," he said.

"It was a considerable wind event. We've got trees down, we've got branches down, we've got inlets clogged up," the mayor said. "But we've got crews out there, we've got our public works crews out there, police, fire, EMS, everybody's available. I think Sugar Land weathered the storm as well as we could."

Tropical Storm Beryl has inundated the Houston area with 5 to 9 inches of rain as it continues to slam east Texas with flooding and gusty winds.

Wind gusts reached 84 mph in Houston and 94 mph in Freeport, Texas.

Beryl has also brought tornadoes to east Texas. A tornado watch is in effect through Monday night in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

The storm will steadily weaken through the afternoon. Beryl was the earliest in the season hurricane to make landfall in Texas since Bonnie in 1986.

-ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke

Beryl is expected to remain a tropical storm as its center passes near Lufkin in east Texas on Monday night.

By Tuesday morning, Beryl will reach Arkansas and is expected to weaken to a tropical depression.

Rain from Beryl will hit Indiana Tuesday morning and then move into Detroit Tuesday night.

Beryl’s remnants will then drop heavy rain in Vermont on Wednesday.

The rain will reach Washington, D.C., Wednesday evening and into Philadelphia and New York City overnight into Thursday morning. Flash flooding is possible.

Power has been knocked out to more than 2.7 million customers in Texas as Hurricane Beryl slams the state with powerful winds and torrential rain.

ABC Houston station KTRK briefly lost power in its newsroom Monday morning.

A wind gust of 92 mph was recorded at about 6 a.m. in Freeport, Texas, the National Weather Service said.

Maximum sustained winds at the time were about 80 mph, officials said. Category 1 storms generally have sustained wind speeds of 74 to 95 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Sustained wind speeds at Palacios Municipal, a coastal airport near where the storm made landfall, were at about 61 mph, officials said. Gusts at the airfield had climbed as high as 81 mph.

-ABC New’s Max Golembo