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Houston officials urge calm, point residents to cooling centers and FEMA registration as recovery continues
Summary
Houston's mayor and state emergency management officials described steps to protect residents amid outages — adding ambulances and opening cooling and multiservice centers — and urged residents to register with FEMA; the mayor pleaded with residents not to threaten linemen restoring power.
The mayor of Houston said the city mobilized ambulances, multiservice centers and public safety officers to respond to Hurricane Beryl's impact and the resulting power outages, and urged residents to use cooling centers, libraries and multiservice centers for ice, water and shelter.
"Linemen are our friends," the mayor said. "Quit threatening linemen." He described shortages — including ambulances and fire stations lacking backup power — and credited collaboration with state agencies (including the Texas Department of Public Safety and TxDOT) for adding public-safety resources on streets and fixing traffic lights.
The chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management said "life safety continues to be our number 1 priority," and thanked teams distributing truckloads of food, water and ice and the volunteers setting up the medical shelter at NRG. The chief recognized Dr. Jennifer Shuford, commissioner of the Department of State Health Services, and urged residents affected by the storm to reregister for FEMA individual assistance at disasterassistance.gov because FEMA will not accept duplicate registrations.
Officials noted about 40,000 Texans remained in hotels and shelters from an earlier derecho and emphasized that those residents must re-register with FEMA to be eligible for additional assistance. The city and state said they would continue to provide ready-made meals, water, ice and shelter as needed while power is restored.
Next steps: city cooling and multiservice centers remain open for residents needing relief; FEMA and the Small Business Administration will set up assistance centers in the coming week.
