Move over, Waffle House Index. Here comes another restaurant-turned-disaster-tracking service.
Texans who experienced widespread power outages and property damage from Hurricane Beryl are seeking an update from energy provider CenterPoint Energy, which has left more than 2 million customers without power since Monday.
But the Houston Landing reported that the power company’s outage maps haven’t worked since the derecho hit the area in May.
The lack of communication has led some Texans to ignore official updates from utility companies and turn to a familiar name: Whataburger.
Feeling left out in the cold, Centerpoint customers are turning to the burger chain’s app for information about local outages. Specifically, they’re looking at a map of the chain’s locations, which are color-coded to show the classic “W” logo in orange if a restaurant is open and gray if it’s closed, presumably because of a power outage.
A particularly astute Houston resident posted his discovery to X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, and by Tuesday afternoon it had been viewed more than 7 million times and had 24,000 likes.
“The Whataburger app acts as an outage tracker, which is handy since the power companies don’t show maps,” said user @BBQBryan, who posted a screenshot of the Whataburger app’s location finder tool.
Sure enough, a map zoomed in on the Houston area showed a dot of gray icons and a few orange ones: Whataburger told USA TODAY that the app will be updated in real time as restaurants begin operating.
Texas power outage map:Beryl knocks out power to millions and heads for Mississippi
“We’re pleased that the Whataburger app is helping Houston residents find out where electricity is available across the city,” Whataburger president and CEO Ed Nelson said in a statement to USA Today.
“The app should only be used to get a general idea of the current power situation,” Nelson continued. “We encourage residents to call their local utility company to see if they are open. Please be safe when you leave your home.”
USA TODAY has reached out to CenterPoint for comment.
Texas power outage map
Beryl hits Texas, leaving more than 2 million without power
CenterPoint said in a post on X that it had deployed 12,000 field crews to restore service to the 1 million customers who were still without it by the end of the day on Wednesday.
Another post, Shared by Texas Sen. Carol Alvarado initially estimated Monday that more than 2.2 million customers were without power, with other frustrated customers writing in the comments section, some of whom reported they couldn’t get through to CenterPoint by phone. Posted by CenterPoint itself.
Many claimed they couldn’t get updates on the service status through phone, email or the website, and some noted that outage maps tend to go down during major outages, leaving them frustrated and turning to other resources like word of mouth or Whataburger.
As of Tuesday afternoon, an outage map was still unavailable on CenterPoint’s website. Just after 4 p.m. ET, the site’s live counter reported that about 1.6 million customers were affected by outages, and that 849,518 had service restored.
The company noted that phone hold times were longer than usual and suggested people sign up for its emergency alert system to receive the latest updates.
About half of Whataburger’s 165 locations in the greater Houston area have reopened, Whataburger told USA Today on Tuesday afternoon.
Nearly all of the Texas stores that were still closed at the time were concentrated in the Houston area, but social media users reported that some stores that were shown on maps as “open” were actually closed or were operating at limited capacity despite appearing to have power.
Beryl, which began as the fastest Category 5 hurricane on record, battered the Caribbean last week before making landfall on the Texas coast early Monday. It weakened to a Category 1 hurricane by the time it reached the U.S. but still caused widespread flooding, trapped people in their homes and cars, lost power amid a dangerous heat wave and killed at least eight people in Texas and Louisiana.
