HOUSTON — Power outages for hundreds of thousands of people across the nation’s fourth-largest metropolis are likely to stretch for days, the region’s electric utility warned, as muggy heat surged in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.
As cleanup continues and officials assess the destruction from the storm, the utility said it expects to restore power for 1 million customers by the end of the day Wednesday, with hundreds of thousands of others facing a surging wave of heat without electricity. The National Weather Service warned that, for those without air conditioning, conditions could become dangerous, with temperatures forecast to rise into the 90s amid intense humidity.
“Heat index values are expected to get as high as around 106 degrees, and these values could become dangerous in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl,” the Weather Service’s Houston forecast office said in social media posts. “Take precautions in your recovery efforts.”
Outages affected police and fire stations, a city animal shelter and the Houston convention center, which has served as a mass shelter during past storms, Mayor John Whitmire said Monday. CenterPoint said late Monday it deployed mobile generation units to an emergency facility and a hospital and expects to deploy more in the coming days.
“While we tracked the projected path, intensity and timing for Hurricane Beryl closely for many days, this storm proved the unpredictability of hurricanes as it delivered a powerful blow across our service territory and impacted a lot of lives,” Lynnae Wilson, a CenterPoint senior vice president, said in a statement. “We know we have important work ahead for our customers who depend on us, especially during the hot summer months.”
On social media, Houston residents eager for more information about power restoration work said they were using an app from fast food chain Whataburger for a sense of the scope of outages.
A map of the chain’s dozens of locations across the Houston region showed the vast majority of them were closed Tuesday morning. The relatively few that opened their doors were on the fringes of the city, mostly clustered on its northern and western sides.
“Well there’s a use for our app we didn’t think of!” Whataburger replied to one customer on X, formerly Twitter. “We hope you and everyone else are okay!”
Molly Hennessy-Fiske contributed to this report.
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