Nearly 200,000 homes remained without electricity Tuesday after Hurricane Beryl hit ground in the Houston area last week. The tropical storm landed on the morning of July 8, flooding roads and highways and knocking over power lines.
Alex Buettgen, a junior studying communications and real estate development, returned home from a family vacation to find trees all over his neighborhood uprooted, branches and debris littering every lawn.
Although his household’s power recovered, his Wi-Fi was out for several days, leaving him unable to easily access his online WRIT340 class.
“My dad’s taking his conference calls using their [a neighbor’s] Wi-Fi. I’m using my hotspot to take my class. My brother is using his hotspot to take his class,” Buettgen said. “It’s definitely all over the place right now in regards to that, but I’m just lucky that we have power.”
Buettgen said the city was a “disaster.”
“There was no working traffic light, one working gas station, and the line for that was wrapped around the block,” Buettgen said.
He described collapsed power lines, tipped over billboards and “countless” trees destroyed.
Worst of all, Buettgen said, no power means no shelter from “blistering heat.”
“Yesterday it got up to 98, with all that humidity that comes after a hurricane. [It] probably feels like 117 and there’s no way to cool off,” Buettgen said on July 10.
Now, Houston residents fear what might happen to their homes and way of life when hurricane season reaches its peak in early fall.
“When it gets September, when the big storms start to come in, what’s going to happen? Is our power grid going to fall apart again?” Buettgen said.
Those questions prompted the Texas Public Utility Commission to launch an investigation on Monday into Houston-based utility company CenterPoint Energy, which manages most affected homes’ power.
The commission criticized CenterPoint on a lack of preparations, tree maintenance and overall communication with customers. Commission Chairman Thomas Gleeson said in a press conference on July 15 that the company must address these concerns as hurricane season approaches.
Since the storm landed over a week ago, more than 2 million households have regained electricity.
CenterPoint said they expect to restore power to 98% of impacted households by the end of Wednesday.
Buettgen said the moment has brought out a community of neighbors supporting neighbors in Houston.
“If you have the ability to help people out, help people out. You never know how far a helping hand can take you,” Buettgen said.