Houston power outages still top 1.3 million, with recovery slow

(Bloomberg) — The lights are slowly coming back on in Houston — although the key word here is slowly.

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Nearly 1.7 million homes and businesses were still without power in Texas as of Wednesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. The majority of the problems are concentrated in Houston, with the region’s main utility, CenterPoint Energy Inc., responsible for nearly 1.4 million of those outages.

Houston is still reeling from the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, which struck the nation’s fourth-largest city as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday.

The outages, which at their peak knocked out power to more than 2.5 million customers across the region, disrupted cell tower service and crippled traffic lights and a major data center, while leaving residents sweltering in a heat wave without air conditioning.

The Houston area remains under a heat advisory for Wednesday. The region’s heat index values ​​- a measure of how hot it feels when humidity is factored in – are expected to reach 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius), the U.S. National Weather Service said.

“Lack of air conditioning will increase the risk of heat-related illnesses,” the weather service said.

AccuWeather Inc. estimated that the cost of Beryl in the United States, including damage and economic losses, could reach $28 billion to $32 billion. The Associated Press reported at least seven deaths in the United States from the storm.

Workers walked about 4,500 miles (7,242 kilometers) to inspect power lines as part of the restoration effort, CenterPoint said in a post on X. As of 8 p.m. local time on July 9, the utility had restored power to more than 850,000 customers, the company said in a statement. The company said it expected to restore service to 1 million customers by the end of the day Wednesday.

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