Houston residents stew and swelter after storm Beryl leaves millions without power [Video]

The return of searing heat in the Houston area has deepened the misery for people still without power after Hurricane Beryl left residents in search of places to cool off and fuel up as the extended outages strained one of the nation’s largest cities.More than 1.7 million homes and businesses in Texas lacked electricity Wednesday morning, down from a peak of over 2.7 million on Monday, according to PowerOutage.us. State officials faced questions over whether the power utility that covers much of the area had sufficiently prepared.Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that a sports and event complex would be used to temporarily hold up to 250 hospital patients who are awaiting discharge but cannot be released to homes with no power.Beryl, which made landfall in Texas early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, has been blamed for at least seven U.S. deaths — one in Louisiana and six in …