Most of Houston without power after Hurricane Beryl

(Bloomberg) — Much of Houston remained without power after Tropical Storm Beryl, and officials warned the outage could last for days even as heat intensifies in the affected region.

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Beryl left the nation’s fourth-largest city a quagmire of flooded streets, downed trees, knocked-out traffic lights and downed power lines. Three deaths have been attributed to the storm, including a Houston police officer who drowned in his car. Beryl, a Category 1 hurricane when it hit Texas early Monday, had already killed 11 people during a week of devastation in the Caribbean.

About 85% of homes and businesses served by the Houston area’s main electricity provider, CenterPoint Energy Inc., lost power. As of 8 p.m. local time Monday, the company had restored power to about 285,000 of the 2.27 million affected customers and expected to have 1 million back online by the end of the day Wednesday, the company said in a statement.

However, although CenterPoint has called in more than 10,000 workers to restore service, the company has warned that parts of its local network may need to be replaced, not just repaired.

“I don’t have power in my house, I know what that’s like,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said at an evening news conference. “CenterPoint is doing everything they can.”

People without power will face a new threat Tuesday as high temperatures follow the storm. The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for the region through Wednesday, with heat index values ​​expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius.

Houston is the oil capital of the Western Hemisphere and a crucial center of American petrochemical production, global shipping and medical research. Perched on a hurricane-swept sea, it is no stranger to storms.

This year, disastrous weather has repeatedly hit the city and its 7 million residents. A series of storms flooded streets and homes, ripped windows out of skyscrapers and left millions in the dark, sometimes for days. Flooding hit some of the city’s suburbs in May, followed by two windstorms that left downtown sidewalks covered in broken glass.

Texas has become a poster child for extreme weather events fueled by climate change, from super-powerful hurricanes along the Gulf of Mexico to heat waves and devastating drought in the state’s dusty west. This year, the state’s largest wildfire on record ravaged the Panhandle.

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Beryl was originally expected to land farther west, but instead ended up close to the city. Its winds ripped part of the roof off city hall in the suburb of Sugar Land, while a local news station showed rescuers pulling a stranded driver from atop his nearly submerged truck.

One resident was killed by a falling tree and another died in a fire caused by lightning, Whitmire said. As of Monday morning, the city was recording 400 911 calls per hour, he said.

Houston officials urged residents to stay home Tuesday to allow utility crews and first responders to assess the damage and tend to vulnerable people. Water and debris still block many streets, and traffic lights may be ineffective.

“I want to stress that we should not be fooled by the clear skies,” Whitmire said. “We still have dangerous conditions.”

–With assistance from Joe Carroll, Rafaela Jinich, Tope Alake, Cedric Sam, Jason Kao, Ali Juell, Naureen S. Malik, and Dan Murtaugh.

(Updated with power outage figures in third paragraph.)

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