Hospital visits for heat-related illnesses increase amid widespread power outages – Houston Public Media

Hospitals in and around Harris County are seeing an increase in patients with heat-related illnesses after Hurricane Beryl swept through the region, causing widespread outages.

According to the Houston Health Department, hospitals in Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend counties received 318 patients with heat-related illnesses, such as heat stroke, heat exhaustion and muscle weakness. That number spans from Monday through mid-morning Thursday.

That’s three times more than the average number of heat-related visits they received last week.

Dr. David Persse, Houston’s chief medical officer, said it’s more important now than ever for residents to be aware of their body’s limits and, most importantly, to know when they need rest and water.

Signs of Heat Exhaustion According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they include nausea, headache, a strong, rapid pulse, and clammy or cold skin.

Persse said he was particularly concerned for people working outdoors.

“You’re going to get hot and you’re going to get dehydrated,” he said. “But people need to understand that you don’t recover from that quickly, especially if you can’t use air conditioning.”

At the height of the crisis, more than 2.2 million CenterPoint customers in the Houston area were without power. As of Friday afternoon, more than 860,000 people were still waiting for their lights and air conditioning to be restored, according to the report. the energy company tracker.

With heat indices well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the days following the hurricane, Persse said the risks of heat exhaustion are high and sometimes signs of illness appear hours after a person needs water or to cool down.

“Your body doesn’t respond quickly to that kind of heat and dehydration,” he said, adding that it takes much longer than a half-hour of rest to recover.

He added that it takes more than a glass or two of water to stay hydrated in this heat.

“If you put two glasses of water in front of you and just compare your size, your body is 70 percent water and those two glasses of water are literally like a drop in the ocean compared to what your body needs,” Persse said.

He stressed that if residents must go out during the heat, they should hydrate more and rest longer than usual.

“If you can’t really limit the amount of effort you put in in this extreme heat, your body needs more time to recover than you probably think,” Persse said.