Houston grandfather dies from overheating, power outage

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HOUSTON – Oscar Rodriguez, 78, died on July 10 of hyperthermia after being found unconscious in his home without electricity.

His family says they received notification that power had been restored to their northwest Houston home near Fulton and Patton St., but the power was never restored.

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“I mean it’s painful. There are no words to explain it,” said his granddaughter, Ana Pena.

His family said his son went to see him on July 10 at noon and that Oscar was doing very well. But when his son returned in the evening to see Oscar again, he was unresponsive.

Oscar was rushed to hospital where he died. The cause of death was determined to be hyperthermia due to environmental exposure following a residential power outage during Hurricane Beryl.

“My grandfather was loving, caring and hardworking. He will be greatly missed,” Pena said. “If anything good can come out of this, it will simply be to show that our elders deserve better.”

He is one of at least eight victims in the Houston area who have died of the same cause.

“I just hope CenterPoint could have done a lot better than what they’re doing,” Pena said.

More than 2 million Houston residents were left without power after Hurricane Beryl passed through the city. As of this writing, eight days later, 50,000 people are still without power. 2.2 million residents have had power restored.