DALLAS (AP) — It could take days or longer to fully restore power to the Houston area after Hurricane Beryl hits Texasleaving millions of residents in the dark and without air conditioning in the scorching summer heat.
The slow pace of restoring power to the fourth-largest U.S. city has put CenterPoint Energy, Houston’s electricity provider, under increasing scrutiny over whether it was adequately prepared before the storm and working quickly enough to restore power.
Some Houston residents, who are all too familiar with prolonged natural disasters, also wondered why one of the Gulf Coast’s largest cities seemed to collapse under Beryl and was unable to better withstand a Category 1 hurricane.
Here’s what you need to know:
What damage did Beryl leave behind?
Beryl was no longer a Category 5 monster when it reached the United States before sunrise Monday. It made landfall as a weakened hurricane with sustained winds of 80 mph (128 kph) after already carving a deadly path of destruction across regions of mexico And the Caribbean.
In the Houston area, Beryl knocked down power lines, uprooted trees and snapped branches that crashed into power lines. As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 60 hours after the waves hit, about 1.3 million homes and businesses were still without power Wednesday, according to CenterPoint Energy. The company said it had restored power to nearly 1 million customers who were without power during Beryl.
The sweltering summer heat that usually plagues the Texas coast has heightened the urgency to restore power. Temperatures soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday, prompting the city to open cooling centers for residents without air conditioning.
What are we doing to restore power?
CenterPoint Energy defended its preparations for the storm and said it had brought in nearly 12,000 additional workers from outside Houston since landfall to speed power restoration.
Asked by Houston City Council members Wednesday about the company’s handling of the storm, Brad Tutunjian, CenterPoint Energy’s vice president of regulatory policy, said it would not have been prudent to pre-position outside crews to “ride out” the storm.
He said extensive damage to trees and power poles hampered the ability to quickly restore power.
“That’s where all the time comes into play to do the restoration work,” he said.
Rural communities in Beryl’s path are also struggling to restore power quickly. In coastal Matagorda County, where Beryl made landfall, officials said it could take up to two weeks to restore power to about 2,500 customers in the hard-hit community of Sargent, where homes were destroyed and badly damaged.
What other storms have hit Houston?
Beryl is just the latest natural disaster to wreak havoc on the Houston area’s power grid. In May, a powerful storm Strong winds that ravaged the region left nearly a million people without power.
Houston was also hit hard in 2021 when the Texas power grid failed during a deadly winter storm that brought plunging temperatures, snow and ice. Millions of Texans Without Power during this storm and were forced to survive in freezing houses or flee.
In 2008, Hurricane Ike The Category 2 hurricane made landfall on Galveston Island with sustained winds of 110 mph (177 km/h), causing flooding and wind damage in the Houston area. The storm left about 2.2 million CenterPoint customers without power, according to the Harris County Flood Control District, which said 75% of power had been restored by day 10.
Where is the governor of Texas?
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been the face of the state’s response while Gov. Greg Abbott is on an economic development tour of Asia, visiting Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
Abbott left Texas on Friday with a delegation of other lawmakers, state officials and municipal leaders. On Tuesday, Abbott said on social media that he had stayed in touch with emergency management officials and Patrick, who is acting governor during Abbott’s trip.
“We will remain committed until every Texan is well,” he wrote.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was criticized in 2021 for travel to Cancun while his state suffered a deadly freeze. This week, Cruz traveled up and down the coast to visit hard-hit communities alongside state officials. On Tuesday, Cruz said he was sleeping on a friend’s couch after his own home in Houston lost power.
