Houston residents discouraged by prolonged power outage, sense of normalcy after Hurricane Beryl

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — For the past five days, Sharan Gahunia, her sister Kiran and her mother Resham have been without electricity.

Kiran suffers from cerebral palsy. Resham suffers from cancer.

“May God help us not to have more storms,” ​​Resham said.

Their restaurant, Raja Sweets, in southwest Houston, has also been without power for five days.

Sharan spent Friday throwing out all the food inside.

“You can survive a day without electricity,” she said. “You can’t survive five days without electricity in this kind of temperature.”

Electricity was restored just before our interview.

But the rain too.

“I’ve never had anxiety, but it’s raining outside, there’s thunder. I’m constantly thinking, ‘OK, what’s going to happen?’ How come we didn’t learn from Ike? It’s like we went through Ike and it got worse,” Sharan said.

The family was without power for two weeks during Hurricane Ike, along with 2.2 million other Houston residents.

They also lost power during heavy rains in May, as did about 850,000 neighbors.

But Beryl took power for 2.26 million of us.

About 800,000 CenterPoint customers are still in the dark five days after the hurricane hit.

“A lot of people are angry and disoriented. They feel isolated and hopeless and wonder when this is going to end,” said John Kelly, a psychotherapist at Therapy and Co. in Upper Kirby. “People have been without power for days and their schedules are disrupted. Their lives, their livelihoods and ultimately their sense of normality.”

Kelly said the key is to rely on friends and family.

“When we feel like we’re out of control, the whole world can feel like it’s out of control,” he said. “I like to remind all my clients of the importance of building a scaffold of support around us.”

And you might want to consider staying away from social media for a while.

“If doomscrolling isn’t helpful, what is? I call it turning down the noise a little bit,” Kelly said.

It’s advice we’ll all need, not just today, but in the weeks and months to come.

Recovery will not be quick or easy.

And hurricane season isn’t even half over yet.

“We can’t keep asking Houstonians to be resilient and live this all the time,” Sharan said. “The phrase ‘Houston Strong’ means we’re ‘Houston Tired.’ That’s how I feel right now. I’m fed up and I’m tired.”

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