Nearly one million households in and around Houston, Texas are without power since the power grid was knocked out on Monday. At the same time, weather services are warning of temperatures of up to 40 degrees.
Power was lost for nearly 2.7 million households and businesses when Storm Beryl swept across the Texas coast on Monday.
High water levels closed roads around Houston, the fourth largest city in the USA. The water has largely receded, but many problems remain, not least that many are without power.
Wait a week
Two-thirds of those affected have had their power restored, but on Friday, 850,000 customers were still without power. And many will likely have to wait another week before they can turn on lights, fans, air conditioning, and refrigerators again. This is according to the power company Centerpoint.
The company has called in 12,000 extra employees to repair a total of 1,400 miles of power lines.
On Friday, those without power got a relative respite from the heat, which only reached around 30 degrees, but according to the American weather agency National Weather Service (NWS), the temperature is expected to rise next week.
"We're suffering"
It's terrible, we're suffering honestly, says Josh Vance, one of those affected, to AFP.
It's extremely rare for a storm of this magnitude to form so early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from the beginning of June to the end of November. And beyond the coming week's "hell", as Vance describes it, Houston residents are afraid that Beryl will be followed by more powerful storms.
I'm praying that there won't be another one, because if there is, we're in trouble, he says.
