Over a million Texans without power as heatwave hits

Thursday marked the fourth day without power for over a million CenterPoint Energy customers in Houston since Hurricane Beryl made landfall. Some 400,000 consumers should get power back by Friday, but another 350,000 customers will be in the dark until Sunday, CenterPoint said Thursday. Beryl severely damaged infrastructure and parts of the company’s coastal electric system need to be rebuilt, CenterPoint added. The company shared images of felled trees over power lines and telephone poles snapped in half. Beryl came ashore Monday as a Category 1 hurricane after slamming the Caribbean the week before.

The National Weather Service placed the Houston/Galveston area under a heat advisory on Wednesday as a heat wave descended on the area with a heat index of over 100 degrees. The lack of air conditioning increases the risk of heat-related illnesses, the service warned. Texans faced a similar energy crisis in February 2021 when a fatal snowstorm left over 4 million customers without power. Living without electricity is dangerous and Texans deserve reliable power, especially after natural disasters and CenterPoint failed, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, wrote on social media on Wednesday.

How is the city responding to heat threats? Several cooling and charging centers have been erected for citizens to use freely, according to the Houston Office of Emergency Management. Citizens can also request a free ride to a cooling center by calling 3-1-1, the emergency officials shared. The centers also offer free water, ice, and food. Houston officials repurposed a local arena into a field hospital for about 250 patients to ease the strain on hospitals experiencing an influx of patients. The White House declared the area a disaster on Tuesday, allowing it access to resources from the U.S. Coast Guard and FEMA.

Dig deeper: Read Josh Schumacher’s report on Beryl’s fatalities in Texas and surrounding states.