Weather officials issued a heat advisory for Houston and its surrounding regions for Thursday, as more than a million homes and businesses in the area remained without power late on Wednesday night in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.
Electricity provider CenterPoint Energy has come under criticism as millions in the Houston area ... [+]
According to PowerOutage.us, more than 1.3 million customers in Texas, mostly in the state’s southeast, remained under a blackout late on Wednesday—1.1 million of whom are CenterPoint Energy customers.
In a Wednesday evening update, CenterPoint said it had restored power to more than 1 million of its 2.26 million customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl.
The utility company expects to restore power to an additional 400,000 homes and businesses by the end of the day on Friday and a further 350,000 by the Sunday end.
The prolonged power outage combined with sweltering temperatures after the hurricane has triggered frustration among people in the area, prompting Houston Mayor John Whitmire to criticize the power company on Wednesday, saying it “needs to do a better job.”
With millions without power, Houstonians will now face a third straight day of sweltering temperatures—with the National Weather Service issuing a heat advisory for Thursday.
The agency warned the heat index—a metric showing how hot the weather really feels—in the area could be in the 100-106 degree Fahrenheit range and could especially pose a threat to people without power or access to air conditioning.
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