Houston Had to Use Burger App to Track Post-Beryl Blackouts (1)

Houston residents trying to monitor blackouts in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl discovered that city’s largest electric utility had no working outage map. So they had to rely on an alternative: a burger app.

With temperatures soaring and more than 2 million people in the dark, CenterPoint Energy Inc. customers found that the company’s website didn’t have a power-restoration tracker. Then a social media post suggested using the Whataburger app to see which of the fast-food chain’s restaurants were closed during business hours — presumably due to a lack of electricity.

The need for a workaround highlights broader concerns about ...