Texas lawmakers nearly three years ago promised changes to prevent the devastation from a deadly winter storm from happening again. But the damage caused by Hurricane Beryl last month shows that much remains the same, particularly when it comes to preventing carbon monoxide poisoning.
Roughly 400 Texans landed in emergency rooms for CO poisoning after Hurricane Beryl pummeled the state on July 8, marking the highest numbers since the 2021 winter storm, state data shows. Two people died of CO poisoning in Harris County, according to Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd. (The county Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet confirmed the deaths.)
Debbie Wells, 72, her husband and her daughter were among the hundreds poisoned. The family used a portable generator to keep the air conditioning on to combat the brutal summer heat.
Though generators have been linked to deaths after nearly every major power outage, including 10 fatalities in Texas during the 2021 winter storm and power grid failure, Wells was not worried.
Her family had routinely used the generator when the power was out, including during the 2021 freeze, which resulted in the worst carbon monoxide poisoning event in recent history. They always kept the device at a safe distance to prevent the colorless, odorless gas from seeping inside. On July 11, however, they moved it a few feet closer to their home in Cleveland, Texas, placing it under the porch in anticipation of rain from the hurricane.
Early the next day, Wells and her husband woke up feeling disoriented and weak. She called her daughter, Jenny Hare, who lives in a trailer house attached to their home. Hare went to check on them and managed to call 911 before passing out on the living room floor.
Emergency responders took the family to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, where they were given treatment reserved for the most severely poisoned patients, according to Dr. Joseph Nevarez, the medical director of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine, Wound and Lymphedema Care at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.
The family did not have a CO detector. Nothing in state law required them to. At the time of the 2021 winter storm, Texas was one of six states with no statewide requirement for CO detectors in homes. State lawmakers later updated building codes to require them in new and renovated homes starting in 2022 but allowed cities to opt out. Though more than half of states require the alarms in some or all existing residences, Texas does not, excluding millions of homes and apartments.
“I think it’s important for everybody to understand that we’re not stupid. We did a stupid thing. We got careless, and it only takes one time,” Wells said. “And if we had the detector, it would have been a different story.”
Wells’ nephew brought her a CO detector after the family was released from the hospital that day. They have since purchased two more.
Gov. Greg Abbott, House Speaker Dade Phelan and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the top Republican state leaders, did not respond to questions about whether they planned to take steps to prevent future poisonings.
Regulations that only require CO detectors in certain types of homes do not go far enough, according to Nevarez, who supports legislation that would mandate detectors anywhere people sleep.
“If safety belts save lives but you said only this portion of the population needs them, that doesn’t make sense,” Nevarez said. “So again, why are we leaving so many Texans at risk for something that’s relatively inexpensive?”
Measures to prevent CO poisoning have also been slow at the federal level and in the county that was most hard hit during the two major outages.
In Harris County, the fire marshal submitted a proposal to County Judge Lina Hidalgo in December 2021 that would ban certain appliances such as grills and heaters from patios and balconies in multifamily residences and apartments. But the proposal did not go anywhere, according to a fire marshal spokesperson, who said the department continues to review possible regulation changes to help prevent CO poisonings. Hidalgo’s office did not respond to questions.
At the federal level, the Consumer Product Safety Commission advanced a proposal in April 2023 to make portable generators safer by requiring the devices to emit lower levels of carbon monoxide and automatically switch off when the gas reaches a certain level. The commission, however, did not provide a timeline for when the regulations will be finalized.
CO poisonings caused by widespread power outages are growing more common as climate change contributes to increasingly frequent extreme weather events, according to scientists.
“Whether you want to blame it on this, that or the other, I don’t care. The world is changing. The climate is changing,” said Dr. David Persse, Houston’s chief medical officer. He added that the state Legislature must continue to strengthen the reliability of the electric grid while also employing back up measures such as requiring CO detectors to ensure residents who turn to alternative power sources like generators stay safe.
“I think with what’s happened here in the last couple of years, it’s undeniable that we need to do something different and so now is the time to take action,” Persse said. “Now is our opportunity to get ahead of this, because this is certainly going to happen again, and we need to better prepare for the next time around.”
Perla Trevizo contributed reporting.
