‘This Storm Has Broken People’: After Beryl, Some Consider Leaving

Houston is no stranger to natural disasters, but living through two crippling power outages in two months has driven some in the city to consider what may be the ultimate evacuation plan: moving out.

The more powerful of the storms, Hurricane Beryl, devastated the power infrastructure over nearly the entire city. When it hit, thousands of people were already living in shelters and hotels, according to state officials, because they had been displaced by an earlier weather event, the spring thunderstorms that caused wind damage and flooding.

Driving around Houston, it can be hard to tell which of the storms that crashed through the city had mangled the highway billboards, torn out the fences or knocked down the trees still strewn along roadsides.

Everyone knows how long it took to get their power back from the first big storm — and when they lost it again. A second round of spoiled food. Of sweltering temperatures. Of emergency plans. In many cases, of repairs to homes that were damaged in the major May storm had yet to be finished when Beryl arrived as a Category 1 hurricane.

For some, it was too much.

“I’m just done, “ said Stephanie Fuqua, 52, who moved to Houston in 2015 and plans to leave in the fall.

Ms. Fuqua’s home had flooded during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. She shivered under blankets for three days when the state’s electrical grid failed during the winter of 2021. Then came the most recent storms, which left her sweltering without power.