Life-threatening heat looms as Texas power outages persist amid Hurricane Beryl aftermath

A critical situation is unfolding in Texas as widespread power outages continue to affect areas hit by Beryl. Officials warn that some people could be without electricity for several days amid dangerous heat.

A critical situation is unfolding in Texas as widespread power outages continue to affect the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Beryl. Over 1.6 million residents across the state remain without power as of Monday morning, including 1.3 million CenterPoint Energy customers in the Houston area, according to PowerOutage.us.

Officials warn that some people could be without electricity for several days. “Based on current progress with its damage assessment and initial restoration, CenterPoint now expects to have 1 million impacted customers restored by the end of the day on Wednesday, July 10,” the company said in a press release on Monday evening.

Extended outages could soon become life-threatening. AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures are forecast to hit triple digits in cities like Houston, Galveston, Bay City, and Port Lavaca, Texas.

"AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures will surge well above 100 F for many hours through at least midweek over areas hit hard by Beryl," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said. "For those without power, the conditions can make daily routines to storm cleanup extremely difficult, if not dangerous. People are strongly urged to take breaks from the heat when and where they can and to stay hydrated if they must be outdoors."

CenterPoint Energy said the storm impacted the company’s customers, systems and infrastructure more than it anticipated, resulting in outages to more than 2.26 million customers at its peak. The utility maintains the systems that deliver power to most residents in Harris and Fort Bend counties, along with several other areas of Greater Houston. According to the company, about 2.8 million Houston-area customers rely on CenterPoint. The destructive winds caused significant damage to parts of the electric grid, including hard-hit areas like Galveston, where 250 poles on a single circuit are down and Brazoria County, where hundreds of trees are uprooted and on power lines.

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, CenterPoint Energy said it has restored more than 640,000 customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl and that it continues to track toward restoration of 1 million customers by the end of the day on Wednesday.

“We are mobilizing all of our available resources, as well as mutual assistance resources from other utility companies, to begin the process of quickly and safely restoring power to our customers,” said Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President, Electric Business at CenterPoint. “We understand how difficult it is to be without power for any amount of time, especially in the heat. We are laser-focused on the important and time-sensitive work that lies ahead.”

According to CNN, Houston Mayor John Whitmire, whose home was also without power Monday, said CenterPoint and the city are “fully aware” of how pressing electricity restoration is.

“We’re going to take care of every community. No community is favored over another community. Every Houstonian is important to us. We’ll get your power on as quickly as possible,” he said.

It's not just health that is a concern. With outages that could last for days, food in refrigerators or freezers will spoil. “We are struggling to have food, and losing that food would be difficult,” Eva Costancio told The Associated Press. People are flocking to areas with power to fill up gas cans and fuel their generators and get food. “Fortunately, here it looks like things are moving pretty good about getting the power back online,” Storm Chaster Aaron Jayjack said on Tuesday morning while at a gas station in Palacios, Texas. “My guess is they are trying to prioritize these locations, gas stations, supermarkets, the essential places, get that power up first.”

CenterPoint said Monday that crews are clearing away storm debris so they can assess the damage to the electric system and reroute power on unaffected lines as quickly as possible. After the full extent of damage is determined, CenterPoint says it will begin publishing estimates for substantial restoration.

The company added that it hopes to deploy mobile generation units to provide temporary power to critical facilities like cooling centers, hospitals, first responder locations, senior centers, and schools.