As the temperature soared in the Houston-area home Janet Jarrett shared with her sister after losing electricity in Hurricane Beryl, she did everything she could to keep her 64-year-old sibling cool.

But on their fourth day without power, she awoke to hear Pamela Jarrett, who used a wheelchair and relied on a feeding tube, gasping for breath. Paramedics were called but she was pronounced dead at the hospital, with the medical examiner saying her death was caused by the heat.

Its so hard to know that shes gone right now because this wasnt supposed to happen to her, Janet Jarrett said.

Almost two weeks after Beryl hit, heat-related deaths during the prolonged power outages have pushed the number of storm-related fatalities to at least 23 in Texas.

The combination of searing summer heat and residents unable to power up air conditioning in the days after the Category 1 storm made landfall on July 8 resulted in increasingly dangerous conditions for some in Americas fourth-largest city.

Beryl knocked out electricity to nearly 3 million homes and businesses at the height of the outages, which lasted days or much longer, and hospitals reported a spike in heat-related illnesses. (AP)

PHOTO: Janet Jarrett shows a photo of her sister, Pamela Jarrett, she keeps on her phone at the home they shared, July 19, 2024, in Spring, Texas. Pamela Jarrett passed away after suffering heat-related distress due to the power outage caused by hurricane Beryl