Texas’ Hurricane Beryl death toll now stands at 36, with additional people losing power due to the intense heat.
Houston (AP) — As more victims were confirmed to have passed away in homes without air conditioning during the intense heat, the official death toll from Hurricane Beryl, which devastated millions of people in Texas, rose to at least 36 on Thursday.
READ MORE: Following Hurricane Beryl’s power outage, heat-related fatalities in Texas have increased
Nine further deaths were confirmed by the Fort Bend County medical examiner’s office, four of which were at least partially linked to hyperthermia, which is a condition in which a person’s body temperature rises significantly above normal. Officials in the Houston area report that at least a dozen more people passed away from difficulties brought on by the heat and losing power.
Following days of severe outages during the searing summer heat, the majority of Houston ians had their energy restored last week. Before receiving power, some homeowners and businesses would need to fix any damaged equipment that falls under their responsibility, according to officials.
The CEO of the city’s electricity provider, Jason Wells, apologized to customers on Thursday for the firm’s reaction following Beryl and informed state regulators that the utility was already making preparations to be better prepared for the next storm. Legislators and Governor Greg Abbott have pressed the utility for explanations on why power was down for so long.
“We will do better. While we cannot erase the frustrations and difficulties so many of our customers endured, I and my entire leadership team will not make excuses. We will improve and act with a sense of urgency,” Wells told the Public Utility Commission of Texas during a meeting in Austin.
Beryl, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall July 8, knocking out electricity to nearly 3 million people in Texas at the height of the outages. Most of those left without power were in the Houston area. Beryl unleashed heavy rain and winds that uprooted trees and damaged homes and businesses along the Texas Coast and parts of Southeast Texas.
At Abbott’s direction, the utilities commission has begun investigating CenterPoint’s preparedness and response to Beryl. A final report is expected by Dec. 1.
The first hearing of the special Texas Senate committee tasked with investigating power providers’ responses to Beryl was scheduled for Monday in Austin.
Wells stated that among CenterPoint’s attempts to improve would be strengthening its relationships with local authorities and communities, hiring additional staff to handle vegetation that could endanger power lines, and strengthening the wires’ resistance to strong winds. This was discussed during the Public Utility Commission hearing on Thursday.
Additionally, CenterPoint reports that it will have a new cloud-based outage tracker. Following a storm on May 16 that knocked out power for about a million subscribers, the company’s old tracker was deleted due to technical issues. Following Beryl’s arrival, some Houstonians attempted to ascertain whether neighborhoods had electricity by utilizing the Whataburger app, which is located in Texas.
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