Faced with mass power outages, infrastructure damage and no real-time updates from utility company CenterPoint Energy, Houston residents relied on Texas-based fast food chain Whataburger to find power in Hurricane Beryl's aftermath.
Last week, X user @BBQBryan posted: "The Whataburger app works as a power outage tracker, handy since the electric company doesn't show a map." The tweet received more than 7 million views and 24,000 likes by the next afternoon, according to USA Today.
The Whataburger app works as a power outage tracker, handy since the electric company doesn't show a map.
— BBQ Bryan (@BBQBryan) July 9, 2024
Still nearly 1.9 million power outages. pic.twitter.com/d8srWmw1oV
"Well there's a use for our app we didn't think of!" Whataburger tweeted in response.
The Whataburger map is dotted with the chain's orange-and-white logo, representing its 46 locations in Houston and 729 in Texas. Gray logos — a common sight last week — indicated that the 24-hour branch was closed, suggestive of the power conditions and status of essential services nearby, such as gas stations.
About one in four Whataburger locations were open in the Houston area Tuesday afternoon, the day after Beryl made landfall in Texas on July 8, according to Houston Chronicle.
The solution has been dubbed the "Watt-aburger Map" and "Whataburger Workaround" on social media.
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One X user called the chain the "orange beacon of hope in the South" and a "true Texas hero."
"Whataburger is that friend by your side in good times and bad," the company's president and CEO Ed Nelson said in a statement. "We're glad the Whataburger app has been helpful to Houston residents to understand where power is available in the city."
CenterPoint Energy, Houston's primary electricity provider, reported more than 2.7 million outages at the peak of Hurricane Beryl. Its power restoration map had been offline since May's derecho and remained down during last week's storm. The map went live more than 24 hours after Beryl had already wiped out power for millions in Greater Houston, according to Houston Landing.
Power outages as Hurricane Beryl's wind and rain lashes Texas
While the Whataburger map was not a perfect metric for power, it seemed to do the trick in the absence of Centerpoint's map — which, even after its launch, was reported to have inaccuracies, local news outlets said.
"When Whataburger has a better-functioning power outage map than Houston's largest electricity provider," wrote Houston Chronicle's editorial board, "something is terribly wrong."
The utility company said it is working on restoring electricity. As of 3:00 p.m. on Monday, more than 220,000 remain in the dark.
This isn't the first time restaurant chains have been beacons of light during extreme weather events. After Hurricane Charley in 2004, the Waffle House Index was born as an informal way to gauge the severity of storms.
“If you get there and the Waffle House is closed?" said former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator William Craig Fugate. "That’s really bad."
