Hospitals in Houston ‘backed up’ after hurricane, as millions in US swelter

HOUSTON – Texas officials began moving patients into a temporary field hospital in Houston’s massive sports complex on July 10, two days after Hurricane Beryl

left millions without power

as excessive heat and humidity swamped the region.

The lack of electricity has strained the healthcare system in the fourth-largest US city. Doctors determined that it was not safe to discharge some patients to homes without air-conditioning, Lieutenant-Governor Dan Patrick said at a news conference, leading to “backed-up” hospitals and three-hour wait times for ambulances to drop off patients.

The plight in Houston comes as searing heat has

engulfed a vast swathe of the US

. Officials suspect heat as the cause of more than 30 deaths in the West in June, though each death requires a full investigation and could take months to sort out.

About 144 million people were under National Weather Service heat advisories in the West and the Pacific North-west, as well as in south-east Texas and many major cities on the East Coast.

The situation is most pressing in the Houston area, where nearly 1.3 million utility customers remained without power on July 10, down from a high of 2.7 million in east Texas on July 8 at Hurricane Beryl’s peak.

Mr Patrick said the prolonged outage, which could extend for days, would be the largest ever seen by the city’s utility, CenterPoint Energy.

One person died of heatstroke in Matagorda County, 145km south-west of Houston, on July 9, officials said.

State officials said they would set up 250 beds in an arena at NRG Park, the sports complex that includes an NFL stadium and houses the famous Houston rodeo, to receive and treat hospital patients who are stable and can be discharged but do not have a cool home to go to.

The facility opened with 100 beds on the morning of July 10, and half of those were full by the afternoon, said Ms Lori Upton, chief executive of the SouthEast Texas Regional Advisory Council. Ms Upton said the temporary hospital is expected to remain in operation for five to seven days.

Across the country, large parts of California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, as well as the corridor from Washington to New Jersey, were under excessive heat warnings, indicating “extremely dangerous heat conditions”.

Forecasters expect those conditions to persist in the West for several more days and to redevelop in the south-east later in the week.

The heat and humidity in Houston was not unusual for this time of year, but because of the widespread power outages, National Weather Service forecasters in the area lowered their threshold for issuing heat alerts.

Typically, a heat advisory would be issued in Houston when the heat index – a measure of how hot the air feels, considering both temperature and humidity – was expected to reach 42 deg C or higher. But the forecasters issued one for July 10 when the index was expected to top out at 38 deg C.

The city has opened dozens of cooling centres and is distributing ice and water, according to its Office of Emergency Management.

Ms Carrington Gilbert, 33, who lives in the Medical Centre area of Houston, was waiting on the morning of July 10 for the power to come back on, more than 48 hours after the lights first went out in her home.

She and her four-year-old daughter were cooling down with hand-held fans that they charged in her car, and were planning to head to a friend’s house if the power stayed out.

Ms Gilbert said she was worried about her grandparents in nearby Pearland, who were also without power. Her cell service was down as well.

“If it gets too hot in your house, you can’t call anyone for help,” she said.

Temperatures in south-east Texas will drop a bit over the next few days, as more rain and cloud cover return to the region.

Washington may also get a reprieve later in the week, but not before hitting an expected peak heat index of 43 deg C on July 10.

Excessive heat warnings were issued for areas along the I-95 urban corridor, including Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

In the West, a long-duration heatwave that started last week will continue to break or threaten records for a few more days.

Temperatures are expected to reach or exceed daily record highs in dozens of places west of the Rockies, from Mexico to Canada, until July 12.

The hot pink, signifying an excessive heat warning, and orange heat advisories made the weather map of the western US look like a mirage of rainbow sherbet. Heat advisories are posted for most of the region other than high mountain elevations.

Nevada did not have a single location on July 10 that was not under a heat advisory or warning. Las Vegas, where the temperature on July 7 reached 49 deg C for the first time in its recorded history, was expected to peak at 47 deg C on July 10.

The heatwave in California and the North-west is expected to ease in the next few days but not end completely. NYTIMES