Texans who have barely started picking up the pieces from the devastation left by Hurricane Beryl’s unprecedented arrival were left struggling Thursday with the dual obstacles of power outages and extreme heat. More than 1.3 million homes and businesses were still without power in the region after the Category 1 hurricane struck on Monday, leaving at least 11 dead across Texas and Louisiana. Many Texans, who’ve been burned by their unreliable energy grid several times over, cool their homes with generators to beat the deadly heat, and improper usage is causing an uptick in carbon monoxide deaths. The Harris County Fire Department, which serves Houston, has reported more than 200 carbon monoxide-related poisoning calls in the last 24 hours, and two deaths. The deadly outage and heat wave combo has also blocked people from accessing food, gas and medical supplies, hampering the recovery process. At least 28 heat-related deaths have been reported on the West coast since July 1, and over 63 million people across the U.S. are under extreme heat warnings as of Thursday morning, according to Heat.gov.
