Juan Pin disperses wet concrete on Sunday while repairing a fence destroyed by Hurricane Beryl in Houston. Sunday marked the familys seventh day without power at their home on the east side of the city.CHANNELVIEW — Juan Piñón’s long-sleeve black shirt and forest green pants were soaked. He used a shovel to scrape concrete mix out of a blue wheelbarrow and throw it on the ground.
The Piñones are among the hundreds of thousands of Texans entering a second week without power as temperatures remain in the 90s and the heat index nears triple digits.and swept through East Texas, knocking down trees and power lines with gusts over 80 mph. The storm maintained hurricane-level strength as it plowed through Houston, knocking out power for almost 3 million people.
A power line damaged by a fallen tree leans over the road on Sunday in the Channelview neighborhood. Several cars driving down the road turned around, some maneuvered under the hazard and some powered through, snagging the live wire on the way.His family relies on their new generator to power a small air conditioner and a freezer. Before that, they used a welding machine as a generator. They cook food the same day they buy it because they can’t store anything in the refrigerator.
“This is the hood,” said Odis Ward, a 52-year-old motel porter from a neighborhood in Houston’s Fifth Ward. “We’re used to our lights getting cut off. We’re going to survive with them, we’re going to survive without them.”