Texas | Houston suffocates without power for air conditioning

(Houston) ‘The heat sucks the life out of our souls and bodies’: No power since tropical storm Beryl In Texas, Josh Vance, like hundreds of thousands of other residents, can no longer even operate a ventilator.

With temperatures reaching 40°C, he took refuge in an air-conditioned community centre, which, like many public establishments, is available to residents of Houston, the largest city in the southern United States.

After crossing the Caribbean as a hurricane, Beryl hit the southern United States on Monday, killing at least seven people in Texas and one in Louisiana, according to authorities. Two million homes were without power, and as of Friday, nearly half were still without power, according to the poweroutage website.

Entire neighborhoods were flooded and trees were uprooted, damaging power lines and substations that technicians have been trying to reconnect to the grid.

When night falls and he has to return to the stifling heat of his home where he lives with his children, Josh Vance, 43, does not hide his suffering.

“I’m trying to cheer up the children but I’m not going to lie to you: we’re dying, the heat is killing us,” he laments, fearing the arrival of a second heat wave.

“I woke up one day with red, puffy eyes. […] “It’s crazy how used we are to having electricity. Without it, it’s like living in hell,” adds the father.

Even though they left the windows open, they found their cat “almost dead” when they returned home one evening.

“Not well prepared”

The United States has two major electrical grids, connected to different energy sources, one for the East and one for the West. If a state encounters difficulties, its neighbor on the same grid can come to its aid. Except in Texas, the only state with an autonomous grid.

In February 2021, an intense cold snap led to spikes in demand and massive outages to prevent the system from overheating, causing dozens of deaths.

In Houston, electricity distribution is provided by the company CenterPoint, whose crisis management is being questioned by citizens and politicians.

“They probably underestimated the impact of the storm […] “They weren’t as prepared as they should have been” to deploy quickly, Texas Deputy Governor Dan Patrick said Thursday after announcing the investigation.

“I understand the frustration of those who are without electricity, especially with this heat […] but I am proud of the progress we have made,” he told the daily Houston Chronicle company executive director Jason Wells.

Fear of a second storm

Meanwhile, food is decomposing in the refrigerator of Maria Dionisio, who has come to cool off with her baby in one of the public “cooling centers” in the south of the country’s fourth largest city.

She hopes to find water and ice there because long lines of cars form in front of the stores.

“I’m very scared for my baby […] we have nothing left to eat, everything that was chilled is inedible […] and we are already very indebted,” despairs the 24-year-old Guatemalan.

The heat wave, “extremely dangerous” for people without access to air conditioning according to the American meteorological service, has already caused several deaths in the United States, which has recorded record temperatures in recent days.

Their increase is, according to scientists, a marker of global warming linked to climate change, which also makes the rapid intensification of storms more likely and increases the risk of more powerful hurricanes.

It is extremely rare for a storm of the power of Beryl arrives this early in the season.

“I pray to God that there is not another hurricane right behind […] otherwise we’re screwed. If we can’t even get up from a [tempête de] “Category 1, that’s just crazy,” says Josh Vance.