After the severe weather in Houston last Thursday, CenterPoint Energy has been working tirelessly to restore electricity to the city. As of Monday morning, the company has brought the lights back on for nearly 700,000 customers, but more than 220,000 are still waiting in the dark. The company aims to have power fully restored by Wednesday, as reported by KTRK.
CenterPoint stated they hope to quickly get 85% of outages resolved by Monday evening. The overnight efforts proved fruitful, reconnecting 115,000 customers with the grid. With temperatures in Houston reaching into the mid-90s, CenterPoint acknowledged the urgency of their mission, especially as high temps are expected to climb even higher. The company's outage tracker faced some hiccups, showing "slower than normal" results, but that issue has since been addressed, according to KTRK.
Amidst recovery efforts, CenterPoint is also focusing on infrastructure inspections and damage assessments, a process hampered by the scale of destruction that was visited upon the city's power lines and vegetation. Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President of Electric Business at CenterPoint, expressed the company's commitment to restoration, saying, "Our crews' visual inspections and damage assessments of our infrastructure (Sunday) showed that we have a lot of hard work ahead in the coming days. The team at CenterPoint and the mutual assistance teams supporting our efforts are committed to the restoration of service to our customers as safely and quickly as possible," according to KTRK.
With detailed maps and frequent updates, CenterPoint is attempting to further provide transparency about when customers can finally expect their power back. To directly access these updates and the restoration map by area, curious Houstonians can visit CenterPointEnergy.com/StormCenter. The company also reminds residents that some equipment might need repairs by a qualified electrician before power can be restored, as reported by KIAH.
And while Houston sweats out the remaining outages, CenterPoint continues to open cooling centers in Cypress, Kingwood, Atascocita, and Katy among other areas. Resources, safety tips, and the full list of currently active cooling centers are available on CenterPoint's website, as Houston and CenterPoint push through to a fully powered finale by week's end.
