People in Texas used Whataburger’s app to track power outages after Hurricane Beryl because Houston’s main power company did not provide them with information.
CenterPoint Energy said 2.26 million customers were without power during the storm.
It said power restoration was quick, but information on exactly where power was restored was hard to come by. There was no map due to technical problems resulting from a storm in May, the New York Times reported.
Instead, locals used Whataburger’s website and app to track which of its restaurants – which are normally open 24 hours a day – were open, allowing them to determine which areas had power.
“The Whataburger app functions as a power outage tracker, handy since the power company doesn’t display a map,” one person wrote in a post on X that has been viewed 11 million times.
“I had to download the Whataburger app to stay updated on the Houston power outage,” another person posted.
Many users pointed out the funny side of using Whataburger as a tracker, with one person writing, “Using the Whataburger app to track power outages after a hurricane is probably the most Houstonian thing I can think of.”
Even the chain itself spoke up, responding to a tweet: “There’s a use for our app we didn’t think of! We hope you and everyone else are doing well!”
This way of using the Whataburger app is not quite similar to the so-called “Waffle House Index,” which is often used to measure the severity of extreme weather events and natural disasters.
Waffle House is known for staying open no matter the weather, so people know something is wrong when their local Waffle House is closed.
Whataburger CEO Ed Nelson told USA Today that the app only gives a “general idea of power availability” and that people planning to visit one of the restaurants should call ahead to check if it is open. One person posted on X that they saw cars in a Whataburger drive-thru that was lit up and looked like it was open, but there was no staff on site. “Each car has to take turns determining this, sadly,” she wrote.
Business Insider has contacted Whataburger and CenterPoint Energy for comment.
More than a million customers still have no electricity
Since Wednesday morning, CenterPoint Energy has released a map showing where power has been restored. As of the early hours of Wednesday, more than 1.3 million customers were still without power.
Beryl was the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. It strengthened to a Category 5 storm “unusually early in the year,” in part due to “exceptionally warm ocean temperatures,” the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. With winds of up to 265 kilometers per hour, it was the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic.
It made landfall on the island of Carriacou in the southern Caribbean on July 1, spread across the Caribbean, leaving a trail of devastation, and reached Texas as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday.
Acting Texas Governor Dan Patrick said Tuesday the state had been notified of three storm-related deaths: two from fallen trees and one from drowning. The AP reported Monday that Beryl had claimed at least 11 lives.
The US National Hurricane Center expects flash floods and possibly tornadoes in areas from southeastern Michigan to northern New England on Wednesday.
