CenterPoint Energy, which has been working to restore electricity to the nearly 1 million Houston-area customers who lost power during last Thursday’s deadly storm, said Wednesday some outages are expected to extend into this weekend.
Nearly 60,000 homes, businesses and schools in the region remained without electricity as of mid-afternoon Wednesday, according to the company’s online outage tracker. There were about twice that many outages as of midday Tuesday, and CenterPoint said power restorations should be “substantially complete” by the end of the day Wednesday.
CenterPoint spokesperson Logan Anderson said the company expects about 20,000 customers will still need their power restored after Wednesday.
About 922,000 customers lost electricity during the peak of Thursday’s derecho – a strong wind storm that produced two tornadoes and damaged buildings, trees and infrastructure while causing at least eight deaths. More than 850,000 of those customers, or about 92%, had their power restored as of noon Wednesday, according to a news release from CenterPoint.
“Any remaining outages after Wednesday evening will be predominantly isolated instances in certain locations where there is substantial damage or where customers are unable to receive power due to severe home damage or damage to customer-owned equipment, such as weatherheads,” the company said. “CenterPoint expects some isolated outages to extend into the weekend.”
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An interactive outage map on the CenterPoint website showed many of the remaining outages Wednesday were in the Spring Branch area – west of West Loop 610 and roughly between Interstate 10 and U.S. 290. There also were clustered outages along the 290 corridor extending northwest to the Jersey Village and Cypress areas as well as in locales north, northeast and east of downtown – such as along Little York Road east of I-69/U.S. 59, the area east of North Wayside Drive and south of Ley Road and in the Jacinto City and Cloverleaf areas.
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There also were outage clusters in the Bellville and Waller areas northwest of Houston.
“We thank our customers for their continued patience and understanding during a very challenging time,” Lynnae Wilson, a senior vice president for CenterPoint, said in a statement Wednesday. “Our crews will be laser-focused and work around the clock to restore power to every last customer.”
With tens of thousands of Houston-area residents in their sixth day without electricity or air-conditioning, temperatures in the region are gradually rising as summer approaches. Daily high temperatures in the low 90s are forecasted for the rest of the week, according to the National Weather Service, which predicts a high of 94 degrees on Sunday and 96 on Monday, which is Memorial Day.
The heat index, or feels-like temperature, is expected to get as high as 101 on Wednesday.
CenterPoint said Tuesday there could be instances in which some Houston-area residents have power but their neighbors do not, because of what CenterPoint described as a “nesting outage” in which the primary problem was fixed but there could be smaller, secondary issues related to unseen damage or overloaded systems. Homes on the same street might also be on different electrical circuits, which could result in varied restoration times, according to the company.
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CenterPoint also encouraged impacted customers to check for damage in localized equipment such as weatherheads, which are the points where power enters homes. Weatherheads often are pipes located on the sides of homes or buildings, according to the company.
“If the weatherhead is damaged, we cannot safely restore service to the home until a licensed electrician has made the necessary repairs,” CenterPoint said. “Customers who are served by an underground service will not have a weatherhead, but there may still be damage to their equipment that could require servicing.”
CenterPoint offered the following safety tips for Houston-area residents who remain without electricity or are engaging in cleanup efforts.
- Stay at least 35 feet away from downed power lines and damaged utility equipment. Be mindful of downed lines that could be hidden, and treat all downed lines as if they are energized.
- Be cautious around work crews and give them plenty of room to assess damage and make repairs.
- Use a portable generator only in a well-ventilated area. Never run it indoors or in a garage in order to avoid carbon monoxide fumes, which can be deadly.
- Never connect a portable generator directly to your building’s electrical system during a power outage as electricity could flow back into the power lines and potentially endanger workers or members of the public.
