Big ‘E’ ℠ map of Beryl outages in Texas
An equity-centric map of Texas power outages in the wake of storm Beryl
Beryl made landfall in Texas as a Category 1 hurricane on the morning of July 8, 2024 but was downgraded to a tropical storm by evening. The storm left more than 2 million residents without power within the first 24 hours, and more than 200,000 residents still awaited power after one week.
These outages came as Texans faced triple-digit heat indices. Extreme heat poses a serious health hazard when not mitigated by fans or air conditioning, thus adding heat-related illness or death to the list of risks following Beryl. Extended power outages like those seen in Texas last week are especially dangerous.
As with most disasters, the human impacts resulting from Beryl outages have been unequal. This may be due to long-standing policy decisions, unbalanced disaster responses, and/or inequitable access to life-saving resources, among others. In any of these cases, early risks assessments would have benefited from an equity-driven analysis of reported outage data.
An equity-centric outage map
S.C. Equity (SCE) has prepared a Big ‘E’ ℠ map of the Beryl Texas power outages using early outage data from the Tallahassee Democrat. The SCE Outage Priority Map is intended to (1) show where the most numerous and enduring reported outages coincided with prior inequities and (2) provide insight on where the greatest human impacts might have been expected in the absence of proactive and equitable interventions.
The SCE outage map relies on novel techniques still under development. For this reason, it has been released retrospectively and only after more than 90% of power has been restored to Texas residents.
Percent of outages
The map below shows 3-day Texas outage data from the Tallahassee Democrat as it appeared on July 9, 2024 at 4:40 p.m. It is made up of ten equal classes of 10% intervals.
Six counties reported outages of over seventy percent. These include:
- Polk County, 88.6%
- Waller County, 84.8%
- Fort Bend County, 80.4%
- Brazoria County, 78.8%
- San Jacinto County, 74.3%
- Montgomery County, 70.8%.
Number of outages
Whereas the percentage of outages suggests the extent of the problem, the count of outages suggests its scale. The following map displays the number of outages per county, with ten roughly-equal classes of around 106,449-outage intervals. It uses the same Tallahassee Democrat data as above.
Counties with the highest number of reported outages on the afternoon of July 9th were as follows:
- Harris County, 1,064,485
- Fort Bend County, 284,027
- Montgomery County, 234,239
- Brazoria County, 136,990
- Galveston County, 108,887.
Polk County reported 88.6% outages, which accounted for 24,102 outages. Harris County reported 50.3% outages, which accounted for forty-four times more outages than Polk County.
SCE Outage Priority Map
The SCE Outage Priority Map combines the S.C. Equity Big ‘E’ ℠ Index (SCEI) with the July 9th Tallahassee Democrat outage data. The SCEI is a composite index of over 100 equity-related indicators that is able to pinpoint the counties experiencing the deepest and broadest equity gaps. You can reference the interactive SCEI county map on the S.C. Equity website.
Higher priority index scores indicate counties that warrant(ed) increased attention due to a combination of equity-related gaps and reported power outages.
The following counties scored highest on the SCE Outage Priority Index:
- Harris County, 100
- Brazoria County, 60
- Montgomery County, 58
- Polk County, 56
- Galveston County, 53
- Fort Bend County, 52.
SCE priority indices might be best suited for disaster watch and response efforts, particularly regarding resource and aid allocation, as in how much to whom? Priority indices do not represent objective measures.
Beryl Aftermath
The human impacts of Beryl will only be known long after the storm has passed, but some inequities become apparent on much shorter timelines. Tracking and mapping power outages can offer insight on where impacts and inequities may be mounting in real time.
The maps in the graphic below show 3-day county percentages of outages between July 9th and July 15th, inclusive.
Power restorations are expected to reach 98% by Wednesday, July 17th.
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