Houston Area Swelters For Third Day Without Power

July 10, 2024 News, Weather

NBC News reports:

More than 1.7 million customers in Texas were still without power Wednesday morning, depriving many of air conditioning during a dangerous heat wave, 48 hours after Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the Gulf Coast. The National Weather Service office in Houston said: “With power outages continuing across southeast Texas, the lack of air-conditioning will aggravate the risk for heat-related illnesses.”

The heat index, a measure of how hot it feels that takes humidity into account, will reach 106 Wednesday, it said. People are urged to check on family members and pets and to limit outdoor activity. Cooling centers are open across Houston. President Joe Biden has granted a federal major disaster declaration, which will reimburse up to 75% of the costs for debris clearance and other emergency measures.

Houston Public Media reports:

It is difficult for residents to determine which parts of the area are most impacted by power outages, since CenterPoint Energy’s online outage map has been unavailable since May. Enter Whataburger, a Texas institution that is seemingly helping to fill the information gap as well as hungry bellies.

A social media user from the Houston area noted that the Whataburger app could serve as a de facto outage map.

The app’s map function shows which fast-food locations are open and which are closed – with an orange “W” symbol indicating an open restaurant and a gray symbol denoting a closed one, presumably because of a power outage since Whataburger locations typically are open 24 hours.

The Texas Tribune reports:



Power companies and elected officials said it could be days before everyone has electricity again, meaning people without air conditioning would have to figure out how to cope with the heat. Most electricity customers in coastal Matagorda County lacked power, as did most of Polk, San Jacinto and Montgomery counties outside of Houston. A sizable portion of Harris County, the state’s most populous, also remained without power.

It is unclear exactly how many customers are without power in greater Houston because CenterPoint Energy’s outage tracker is unavailable. CenterPoint maintains the power poles and wires that deliver electricity in Houston and its surrounding communities. Restoring power to Texans is the state’s No. 1 priority, officials emphasized during a Tuesday press briefing in Galveston County, where at least 45% of people still lack power.

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