Almost two weeks after Beryl hit, heat-related deaths during the prolonged power outages have pushed the number of storm-related fatalities to at least 23 in Texas.
The combination of searing summer heat and residents unable to power up air conditioning in the days after the Category 1 storm made landfall on July 8 resulted in increasingly dangerous conditions for some in America’s fourth-largest city.
Beryl knocked out electricity to nearly 3 million homes and businesses at the height of the outages, which lasted days or much longer, and hospitals reported a spike in heat-related illnesses.
Power finally was restored to most by last week, after over a week of widespread outages. The slow pace in the Houston area put the region’s electric provider, CenterPoint Energy, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared.
Before I even looked at the story I was thinking “this is what happens when you decide you want to cut yourself off from the nation’s power grid”. This is what, the THIRD, serious incident they’ve had related to power?
Third in the last year and a bit, yep
Wow, I thought it had been a longer stretch of time