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The day after Hurricane Beryl blasted through Houston, the city shut down nine of its fire stations because they had no electricity. More than 175 wastewater pumping stations were without power, forcing the city to rotate generators to keep sewage flowing. And the city opened only one cooling center Tuesday morning as power outages and a shortage of generators limited City Hall’s response to a heat advisory while nearly 2 million people were without power around the region.

Beryl exposed an extraordinary lack of readiness in Houston to respond to mass power outages, largely due to too few available generators. And it exposed how a major American city, with a global footprint, stood hamstrung after a storm without the punch of much larger hurricane.

“When we pass through this period, we definitely need to focus on getting ready for the next incident,” Mayor John Whitmire told city department heads during a Tuesday afternoon briefing.

The hurricane made landfall early Monday morning as a category 1 storm. It buffeted Houston with winds in excess of 90 mph and left 2.7 million people without power across the region, at its peak.

Despite its relative lack of intensity, the storm has disrupted life in Houston for much of the past 48 hours.

During a Tuesday afternoon briefing with department heads and Acting Texas Gov. Dan Patrick, Whitmire said generators were a “critical need” for the city.

Throughout the meeting, Whitmire lauded the response by his department heads and city employees despite the circumstances, but said the city’s readiness must improve before the next disaster.

A rotating cast of department heads detailed large numbers of their facilities without power amid efforts to stretch the city’s limited supply of generators and obtain new generators to keep functioning.

How bad is it?

Firefighters from the nine fire stations were being housed at stations with power.

One drinking water pump station in Acres Homes was operating on generator power and was listed as a priority for CenterPoint Energy, which operates most of the electrical transmission lines crisscrossing the city.

There were 179 wastewater lift stations without power, and the system was being kept operational by moving available generators from station to station as needed.

A majority of the Houston Police Department's patrol stations were running on generator power, HPD spokesman John Cannon said Tuesday evening. The outages have not impacted HPD’s response time, he added.

“It’s time for us to figure out what the solution is so when we have the next storm we’ll be prepared and can respond,” said Randy Macchi, chief operating officer for Houston Public Works.

CenterPoint Energy, which provides the power infrastructure to much of the city, sent Houston nine generators on Tuesday, said Brad Tutunjian, a vice president with the company.

The utility company has faced a wave of criticism since the storm over its preparations and response as millions were left without power and temperatures climbed on Tuesday. It also has been unable to provide estimates for when restoration will be completed, citing the need for an assessment of the damaged lines to first be completed. Tutunjian said the company hopes that assessment will be completed by Wednesday.

Restoring power to needed city facilities is a priority for CenterPoint, Tutunjian said, but it is unclear when those repairs will be completed.

Local and state leaders spent much of Tuesday encouraging CenterPoint to expedite its work.

Both Patrick and Whitmire said they have been in constant communication with CenterPoint since the storm to urge power restoration as quickly as possible, but did not directly criticize the company.

“The city does not run CenterPoint, but we’re in this together,” Whitmire said.

As of Tuesday evening, slightly less than 1.4 million CenterPoint customers remained without power. The company has committed to restoring power to 1 million customers by the end of the day Wednesday.

The work allowed the city to open a further five cooling centers by the end of the day Tuesday. The county government and other outside partners were able to open additional cooling centers that can be found here.

Whitmire blamed the city’s lack of generators on his predecessors.

“This is not the first time cooling centers were not cooling, whether it’s a library or whether it’s a multiservice center,” Whitmire said. “It is incomprehensible to me that you have a police substation or a fire station without a backup generator, but that’s what we inherited and that’s what we’re here to fix.”

During City Council’s passage of the budget last month, the city’s lack of generators at some facilities was a frequent topic. Several council members noted a lack of generators at some of the city’s multiservice centers and asked that funding be found in the future for them to be purchased.

Whitmire echoed the statements at the time but most of the city’s then-record fund balance was used to cover the city’s budget deficit, which has only grown due to the passage of a $1.5 billion back pay settlement and contract with the Houston firefighters union.

Houston’s lack of generators is not unique.

Several Harris County facilities and offices remained closed due to a lack of power, and a backup generator at Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Hospital failed Monday night, causing the medical center to lose power for a time, County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Tuesday.

Harris County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Mike Lee said Beryl’s winds caused at least one substation to be moved to a mobile home, and deputies to be reassigned to guard facilities that hold evidence or weaponry.

The department’s buildings — some of which are decades old — do not all have generators, or one strong enough to power air conditioning units.

The issues have not impacted deputies’ ability to respond to calls after the storm, Lee said.

Lee said he hoped funds from a successful 2022 public safety bond would go toward upgraded facilities.

Hidalgo said incoming aid from the federal government could help the county purchase generators and other supplies to prevent future outages.

During the Tuesday afternoon briefing, Patrick suggested working with Whitmire and other big city mayors to lobby the legislature to further equip Texas’ cities with generators in case of disaster.

“There is no reason we shouldn't have generators at fire stations, at lift stations,” Patrick said. “This is 1920s thinking, we really need to do this.”

Reporter Eileen Grench contributed to this story.

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