More than 1 million Houston-area customers still without power after Beryl

It could take days or longer to fully restore power to the Houston area after Beryl slammed into Texas as a hurricane earlier this week, leaving millions of residents in the dark and without air conditioning in searing summer heat.

The slow pace of restoring power in America's fourth-largest city has put CenterPoint Energy, Houston's utility provider, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared before the storm and was working fast enough to get the lights back on.

Some Houston residents — who are all too familiar with enduring natural disasters — have also questioned why one of the largest cities on the Gulf Coast appeared to wilt under Beryl and was unable to better withstand a Category 1 hurricane.