Houston restaurant owner frustrated amid power outage impacted by Beryl: 'I'm fed up'

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- For five days now, Sharan Gahunia, her sister Kiran, and her mother Resham have been without power.

Kiran has cerebral palsy. Resham is a cancer patient.

"God help us not get more storms," Resham said.

Their restaurant, Raja Sweets in southwest Houston, has also been without power for five days.

Sharan spent Friday throwing away all the food inside.

"You can handle a day of losing power," she said. "You can't handle five days of losing power in this type of temperature."

The electricity started up again just before our interview.

But so did the rain.

"I've never had anxiety, but it rains outside, you hear the thunder. I'm constantly like, 'OK, what's going to happen?' How did we not learn from Ike? It's like we went through Ike and just got worse," Sharan said.

The family lost power for two weeks during Ike, along with 2.2 million other Houstonians.

They also lost power during this May's severe weather, along with about 850,000 neighbors.

Beryl, though, took down power for 2.26 million of us.

About 800,000 CenterPoint customers are still in the dark five days after the hurricane hit.

"A lot of people are feeling angry and confused. They're feeling isolated and desperate and wondering when this will ever end," John Kelly, a psychotherapist with Therapy and Co. in Upper Kirby, said. "People have been without power for days, and schedules have been disrupted. Lives, livelihoods, and then a person's sense of normalcy."

Kelly said the key is relying on friends and family.

"When we feel out of control, the whole world can feel out of control," he said. "I like to remind all my clients the importance of building a scaffold of support around us."

And, you might want to consider staying off social media for awhile.

"If the doomscrolling is not helpful, what might be? I call it turning down the noise a little," Kelly said.

It is advice we'll all need, not just today, but for the coming weeks and months.

Recovery won't be quick or easy.

And hurricane season isn't even half over for the year.

"We can't keep asking Houstonians to be resilient and go through this all the time," Sharan said. "The phrase 'Houston Strong' - we're 'Houston Tired.' That's how I feel right now. I'm fed up and I'm tired."

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