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- More than 2.7 million power outages were reported at the height of the storm’s impacts.
- Most of the outages were customers of CenterPoint Energy in Houston and surrounding areas.
- Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas Monday.
Several hundred thousand Texans faced the prospect of no power through the weekend, as the Houston area’s biggest power company faced mounting pressure to get the lights back on four days after Beryl.
More than 700,000 homes, businesses and other utility customers were still without power in Texas as of Saturday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us. Each outage can represent multiple people on a single account.
Most of the outages were customers of CenterPoint Energy. CenterPoint said in an upd ate Wednesday night it expected to have 400,000 more customers restored by the end of the day Friday and another 350,000 by the end of Sunday.
“We know that we still have a lot of work to do,” Jason Ryan, CenterPoint’s executive vice president, said Thursday during a meeting of the Texas Public Utility Commission. “We will not stop the work until it is done.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is in Asia on state business, called the situation “not acceptable” and promised an investigation.
(MORE: Hot Weather And Power Outages A Deadly Combination)
As thousands sweltered without power, the Houston area was under a heat advisory and a flood warning Friday, with rain in the forecast.
More than 2.7 million power outages were reported in Texas at the height of the storm’s impacts Monday.
“Maybe they thought it wasn’t going to be so bad, but it’s had a tremendous effect. They needed to be better prepared,” construction worker Carlos Rodriguez told the Associated Press at a food distribution center. He said his family, including two young daughters, was struggling in the heat.
“We have no power, we’re going to bed late and I’m using a fan made out of a piece of cardboard to give my kids some relief,” Rodriguez told the AP.
Many Houstonians took refuge in public spaces or cooling centers. Concerns were also high over the elderly, including those in assisted living and similar facilities.
“I try to be understanding because I know there’s a million other people feeling the same way,” Ian Wu, who owns an assisted senior living facility in suburban Spring, Texas, told KTRK-TV.
“Right now, we’re trying to keep our generators up to power the essential stuff like for cooking and oxygen tanks.”
Houston’s schools were impacted heavily by Beryl. In an update Friday, the Houston Independent School District said 70 campuses had no power, 50 had trees down and 60 had roof or structural damage.
Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday on the Gulf Coast about 80 miles southwest of Houston. The storm then moved northeast through communities along the coast and across the Houston metro.
(MORE: Beryl’s Damage, In Photos)
At least seven deaths in Texas and one in Louisiana are being blamed on Beryl. Those all happened during the storm.
But what happens after a storm can be even more dangerous.
(MORE: How To Protect Your Family From Carbon Monoxide Poisoning During A Power Outage)
Dozens of people have died during post-storm power outages in recent years. Causes range from overheating to medical conditions that rely on electricity to carbon monoxide poisoning while running portable generators.
The elderly are especially at risk. At least a dozen residents of nursing homes and senior apartments in Louisiana died in the wake of Hurricane Ida in 2021.
Weather.com reporter Jan Childs covers breaking news and features related to weather, space, climate change, the environment and everything in between.