nathans :ms_weed:<p>'Joke of a state': Texans resorting to fast food app to track outages slam utility company</p><p>After the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, millions of Texans were left without power. And once again, residents of the Lone Star State were unable to count on Texas' flagship utility company for either prompt service restoration or even reliable communication.</p><p>Some Texans frustrated with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and main power company CenterPoint Energy (formerly Reliant Energy) not providing residents with an outage tracker found a better alternative — the app for Texas-based fast food chain Whataburger. X/Twitter account @BBQBryan posted a viral tweet Monday night showing a screenshot of the Whataburger app's locations in the Houston Metro area, with locations that were open colored in orange and the ones that were still closed colored in grey.</p><p>"The Whataburger app works as a power outage tracker, handy since the electric company doesn't show a map," @BBQBryan wrote in the tweet that has since been viewed more than seven million times. "Still nearly 1.9 million power outages."</p><p>That tweet spawned a flurry of angry reactions on social media, with some Texas-based X users using the outage tracker as a jump-off point for a larger conversation about how Texas' GOP-dominated government has failed to provide reliable infrastructure for residents.</p><p>"Whataburger has been more helpful in tracking outages than CENTERPOINT ENERGY," tweeted Texas-based progressive activist Olivia Julianna. "This is ridiculous. What a joke of a company and joke of a state to continue to let these major outages happen without investments into burying power lines or upgrading electric infrastructure."</p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/USPol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>USPol</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Politics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Politics</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/News" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>News</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Texas" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Texas</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Whataburger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Whataburger</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Hurricane" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Hurricane</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/ClimateChange" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ClimateChange</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Alternet" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Alternet</span></a></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/texas-fast-food/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="">alternet.org/texas-fast-food/</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p>