Forrest Avenue, in the South Highland neighborhood, is dark except for street lights at dawn Saturday, June 17, 2023, after a storm, in Shreveport, La.
Henrietta Wildsmith/AP
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Henrietta Wildsmith/AP
Forrest Avenue, in the South Highland neighborhood, is dark except for street lights at dawn Saturday, June 17, 2023, after a storm, in Shreveport, La.
Henrietta Wildsmith/AP
AUSTIN, Texas — More than 300,000 customers in the southern U.S. remained without power on Monday after storms caused heavy damage over the weekend, prompting residents to seek relief as they sought relief. sweltering temperatures continue to scorch the area.
Officials say at least one person in Oklahoma has died from a prolonged power outage.
The majority of the power outages occurred in Oklahoma, where heavy storms Saturday night brought winds of up to 80 mph around Tulsa, according to the National Weather Service. About 165,000 customers around the city remained without power as of Monday as crews tried to repair more than 700 broken poles and downed power lines, said Amy Brown, a spokeswoman for the Public Service Company of Oklahoma.
A respirator user has died from a power outage, Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum said at a city news conference.
Power providers warn that some power outages may not be fixed until the weekend, and Bynum urged residents to keep in mind families and neighbors are dependent on electronic medical equipment.
“Check them out,” he said.
In total, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana had more than 300,000 customers without power as of Monday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.
In Louisiana, officials closed nearly two dozen state offices on Monday because of the risk of severe weather. Aside from power outages, a heatwave continues to bring dangerous triple-digit temperatures to Texas, and parts of the state are being warned that extreme heat is expected to continue for at least some time. especially Wednesday.
“It’s unbearable,” said Leigh Johnson, a resident of Mount Vernon, Texas, told Dallas TV station KXAS. She had no electricity for about three days.
“It’s horrible because it’s like, the heat index is so bad that we literally have to sit in a cold tub to cool down. So do our animals, we have to stuff them in the tub just to cool off. keep them from getting heatstroke, that’s terrible,” she said.
About 4,000 customers are still waiting for power to return in the town of Perryton, Texas after a devastating tornado wreaked havoc last week.
The power outage also extended to Mississippi, where some people had trouble getting their medicine after the blackout forced pharmacies and grocery stores to close, according to the report. WLBT-TV. As crews were working to restore power in Mississippi, multiple tornadoes swept through the state overnight into Monday, killing one person and injuring nearly two dozen.
