Posted on 07/10/24
| News Source: FOX45
The return of searing heat in the Houston area has deepened the misery for people still without power after Hurricane Beryl crashed into Texas and left residents in search of places to cool off and fuel up as the extended outages strained one of the nation's largest cities.
More than 1.7 million homes and businesses still lacked electricity Tuesday night, down from a peak of over 2.7 million on Monday, according to PowerOutage.us. As frustration mounted, state officials faced questions over whether the power utility that covers much of the area had sufficiently prepared.
Nearly 36 hours after Beryl made landfall, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that a sports and event complex would be used to temporarily hold up to 250 hospital patients who are awaiting discharge but cannot be released to homes with no power.
People were coping as best they could.
"We can handle it, but not the kids," Walter Perez said as he arrived at celebrity pastor Joel Osteen's megachurch in Houston, which served as a cooling center and distributed 40-bottle packs of water.
Perez said his wife, 3-year-old son, 3-week-old daughter and his father-in-law retreated from their apartment after a night he described as "bad, bad, bad, bad."
An executive for CenterPoint Energy, which covers much of the Houston area, defended the utility's preparation and response.
"From my perspective to have a storm pass at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, have those crews come in in the late evening, and have everything ready by 5 a.m. to go out and get out and start the workforce is rather impressive because we're talking about thousands of crews," Brad Tutunjian, vice president of regulatory policy with CenterPoint Energy, said at a media briefing.
Highs in the Houston area on Tuesday climbed back into the 90s (above 32.2 Celsius) with humidity that made it feel even hotter. Similar heat and humidity was expected Wednesday. The National Weather Service described the conditions as potentially dangerous given the lack of power and air conditioning.
Beryl, which made landfall early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, has been blamed for at least seven U.S. deaths — one in Louisiana and six in Texas — and at least 11 in the Caribbean.