HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Being without power is a major inconvenience, but it’s a matter of life or death for people who rely on medical equipment that needs electricity.
KHOU 11 Investigates used Medicare data to track where the most vulnerable people live – Medicare recipients who use electricity to power life-saving devices like oxygen tanks, wheelchairs and ventilators.
Nationwide, there are 3 million people like this and over 200,000 in Texas alone. The county with the most is Harris County with 23,000 power-dependent Medicare recipients.
The three Harris County zip codes with the most power-dependent patients are 77449 in Katy with 533 people, 77379 in Spring with 499 and 77521 in Baytown with 448.
Those are all areas where some residents have been without power since Hurricane Beryl. That’s because being power-dependent doesn’t trigger the power to come on faster, at least not in Texas.
Some states, like Louisiana, use this data to pinpoint where emergency shelters should go during a hurricane and to decide where power should be restored first.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas told us they leave that up to the individual utility providers. Last year, CenterPoint told KHOU Investigates that it does not use Medicare data to identify the location of customers who rely on electricity-dependent medical equipment. CenterPoint encourages those customers to apply for Critical Care Residential customer status with the PUC. There’s also the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry, or STEAR.
But, neither program guarantees the lights will stay on.
If you live in Harris County and have not signed up, there is an option right now. Call 211 and the county will send someone to do a wellness check, County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a news conference Tuesday.
“They’ll see what you need they'll transport you somewhere cool if that's the answer. They'll help you refill your oxygen or whatever it is that you need um they will help you with,” Hidalgo said. “If it's an emergency of course you can call 911.”