89-year-old woman unconscious for days due to heat in northeast Houston, family says

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Relatives of an 89-year-old northeast Houston woman say she passed out from heat exhaustion days after losing electricity.

"My momma got so overheated, her body shut down and she has not waken up yet," Monica Shaw said.

That was on Wednesday. Shaw said she called in a nurse and bought two generators to get the air conditioning running, but that hasn't been enough to revive her mother.

She has dementia and congenital heart failure, which Shaw said puts her at even higher risk than most.

"Touch her body, she's hot. Checked her temperature, it was 101," Shaw said.

Around the corner in their neighborhood near Homestead and Tidwell, Kimberly Rubit and her sick daughter are forced to navigate their dark home with a battery-powered light.

"She's blind in one eye. She can't see out the other one barely. She has to maneuver around to get to the bathroom," Rubit said.

Rubit's daughter also has cerebral palsy. With heat indexes frequently reaching triple digits, she's worried it could bring on a seizure.

"It's very uncomfortable. I don't have no money to go to the hotel motel, Holiday Inn. I don't have that. I don't have any money," Rubit said.

CenterPoint has been updating its newly unveiled outage map, but customers continue to complain about inaccuracies.

Right now, the map shows Rubit and Shaw can expect power on Tuesday.

But Rubit wasn't impressed when Eyewitness News informed her of CenterPoint's estimate.

"What you say? Oh no. Put Donald Trump, Biden, and everybody else - send them here 'cause this is unacceptable for real. Tuesday? Oh no," Rubit said.

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