Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas this week, causing widespread power outages that included more than 2.26 million people in the Houston area. However, due to lingering technical issues from a storm in May, Houston’s main energy provider CenterPoint Energy was unable to provide an online map of where its services were down.
Fortunately, Houstonians found a very on-brand workaround. The city and its surrounding areas are home to about 160 restaurants in the Whataburger fast-food chain, which has an app. People were checking the app to see which Whataburger locations were open, indicating that the power was on in those areas.
A post sharing the news on X racked up more than 11 million views, with some pointing out the humorous aspect of such a situation. “Using the Whataburger app to track power outages after a hurricane is probably the most Houston thing I can possibly imagine,” one user commented. CenterPoint Energy has since released a map tracking where customers have had power restored, though as of Wednesday morning more than 1.3 million customers still did not have power.
