Enter Whataburger, a Texas institution that is seemingly helping to fill the information gap as well as hungry bellies.
A social media user from the Houston area noted Monday night that the Whataburger app could serve as a de facto outage map, since the app’s map function shows which fast-food locations are open and which are closed – with an orange “W” symbol indicating an open restaurant and a gray symbol denoting a closed one, presumably because of a power outage since Whataburger locations typically are open 24 hours.
“Whataburger is that friend by your side in good times and bad,” Ed Nelson, the company’s president and CEO, 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.”
https://twitter.com/BBQBryan/status/1810509150842974308
CenterPoint, which supplies electricity to most of the Houston region, reported more than 2.2 million outages at the peak of Monday’s storm. The company says it expects to have power restored to about 1 million of those customers by the end of the day Wednesday, with there being more than 1.6 million total outages as of 2 p.m. Tuesday, according to its online outage tracker.
CenterPoint’s website also featured an outage map until May, when more than 900,000 customers lost electricity during a deadly windstorm. There is an outage map on the website for Entergy, which serves communities to the north and east of Houston and reported more than 211,000 outages as of 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The absence of a map on the CenterPoint site has been a source of criticism among Houston-area residents impacted by Monday’s hurricane, including a user on the X platform whose handle is @BBQBryan.
“The Whataburger app works as a power outage tracker, handy since the electric company doesn’t show a map,” the user wrote in the Monday night post.
The post had received more than 6 million views as of Tuesday afternoon and prompted a response from Whataburger’s account, which said, “Well there’s a use for our app we didn’t think of!”
Whataburger, founded in Corpus Christi in 1950 and now headquartered in San Antonio, operates 165 locations in the Houston region, according to a company spokesperson. Its app showed that roughly 30 of those restaurants were open as 2 p.m. Tuesday, when mobile ordering was unavailable.
Some X users pointed out that locations denoted with an orange “W” on the app were not actually open.
“Keep in mind, the app should only be used as a general idea of power availability,” Nelson said. “We encourage residents to call local units to see if they are open and operating. Everyone please be safe if you leave your home.”
A spokesperson for the company said it will be donating water to local shelters through the American Red Cross and bringing the Whataburger food truck to the Houston area next week to offer food to local residents in need.
Copyright 2024 Houston Public Media News 88.7
