"Dangerous heat" is set to affect southeast Texas on Tuesday after Beryl left over 2 million utility customers in the region without power, the National Weather Service said.
A large chunk of the Texas coast, where Beryl made landfall Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane, was under heat advisories Tuesday, including cities like Houston and Corpus Christi.
High temperatures coupled with no access to air conditioning could cause heat-related illnesses, the weather service field office in Houston said.
"With power out across much of Southeast Texas in the wake of Beryl, no air conditioning could make for dangerous conditions as temperatures warm into the lower 90s," the service warned, adding that heat index values up to 106 degrees are possible. The heat index is what it feels like to the human body when the temperature is combined with humidity.
The service encouraged people to stay hydrated and limit outdoor activities, including cleaning up damage left behind by Beryl.
At 11 a.m. E.T. Tuesday, 2.25 million utility customers in Texas were without power, according to Poweroutage.US. Crews from CenterPoint Energy were out working to restore power to areas affected Tuesday, the utility company said on X. About 2.07 utility customers were still without power at 4 p.m. E.T.
In an update Monday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country, said that the power restoration effort will be a multiday event and that areas where vulnerable communities live, including senior citizens centers, will be prioritized.
"We'll need a little bit of patience, and we'll get there," Patrick said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's Region 6 office in Denton encouraged those without power "to take necessary measures to stay as cool as possible as temperatures rise."
Cities across the coast, including Houston, Galveston, La Porte and Corpus Christi, have opened cooling centers to help people escape the heat.
Houston resident Tracy Timmons was seeking refuge at the Lakewood Church, one of the city's cooling centers. She lost power in her home before Beryl made landfall in Texas.
"It feels like an oven … even with the windows open," Timmons said.
Timmons has diabetes, a condition that requires her to eat every couple of hours, which is proving to be a challenge, because the power outage has made all the food in her refrigerator go bad.
“It can be life or death for me,” Timmons said, adding that she was disappointed in CenterPoint Energy for not having dispatched crews to the area earlier.
The state Department of Public Safety has activated a team to help those affected by Beryl, it said on X.
"DPS will continue to deploy resources where needed to ensure Texans are taken care of following the storm," the post read.
