Hurricane Beryl leaves more than 1.7 million Houston residents without power during heat wave

As temperatures near triple digits, Houston residents remain without power after Hurricane Beryl, struggling to find help and essential services.

As of Wednesday morning, nearly 1.7 million homes and businesses were still without power, down from a peak of more than 2.7 million reported Monday, according to PowerOutage.us.

Today, Texas is facing temperatures reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit, compounded by intense humidity.

The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory, describing conditions as potentially dangerous.

With power outages and a lack of air conditioning, they warned of an increased risk of heat-related illnesses during these high temperatures.

As residents watched Hurricane Beryl make landfall early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, state officials faced scrutiny over the power company’s preparations.

After the first 36 hours, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX) announced that a sports and event complex could temporarily house up to 250 hospital patients awaiting discharge, unable to be released to homes without power.

Patrick, who is serving as acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is out of the country, said nursing homes and assisted living facilities are a top priority.

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 16 hospitals were operating on generators as of Tuesday morning.

Brad Tutunjian, vice president of regulatory policy at CenterPoint Energy, which serves a significant portion of the Houston area, supported the company’s preparedness and response efforts.

“From my perspective, to see a storm come through at 3 p.m., to see these crews come in late in the evening and have everything ready by 5 a.m. to go out and start working is pretty impressive because we’re talking about thousands of crews,” Tutunjian said during a press briefing.

Beryl killed at least seven people in the United States, one in Louisiana and six in Texas, and at least 11 people in the Caribbean.

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Nim Kidd, the head of the state’s emergency management division, said restoring power was the top priority.

Residents complained that city and state officials failed to alert them of a storm originally forecast to make landfall much further down the coast, leaving them insufficient time to stock up on gas or prepare to evacuate in the event of a power outage.