HOUSTON – During what’s proving to be the hottest week of summer so far in Houston, an entire apartment building is left without air conditioning.
An accident early Saturday morning knocked down the power lines that run to The Ridley Apartments along Winsome Lane in the Galleria area. The white box truck also took out a utility pole and the apartment’s gas main.
As a result, residents in the 133-unit apartment building are left without air conditioning during Houston’s hottest week so far this summer.
“Let’s see. What is it now? It’s at 84,” said Adrian Johnson. “So, it’s 84 in here currently.”
That’s not even the hottest reading we saw.
Gage Goulding: “Almost 88 degrees inside. What do you keep the temperature on?”
Bryan Conner: “The temperature stays roughly at about 73 to 75 degrees in here.”
The entire apartment building has been baking in the South Texas sun since around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Residents say there’s been little to no progress on restoring power.
“What you’re looking at right now has been identical since Saturday,” said Conner.
Their apartment complex fronted the bill for some hotel rooms for residents while moving others into vacant units. However, they’ve been quiet in terms of updates.
“Sunday, she told us that it would be done by Wednesday,” Johnson said.
“I get it’s a process. But tell us where you are in the process,” added Conner.
After six days, the residents called KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding to help get them answers.
The apartment management company, Emerge Living, said in a statement they’re waiting on the utility company to do some work before they can get started.
Statement From Emerge Living President Cynthia McMillion:
“You are correct, on Saturday, a box truck had a crash at the property. Unfortunately, the incident destroyed the equipment supplying power and the gas to one of the buildings at the property affecting our residents.
We have been actively working to resolve this issue, as well as taking care of our residents. We have provided temporary units at the property and paid for residents to stay in hotel rooms along with other accommodations.
Regarding the repair, the crash involved a lot of equipment, including equipment managed by CenterPoint as well as equipment on our property. We have been in daily communication with both CenterPoint and our own electrical contractor who are working hard to resolve the issue. The issue has been out of our hands, necessitating repairs to the city lines. CenterPoint is expected to come complete a repair to their lines in the next 24 hours, at which point our own electrical contractor can complete the remainder of the required work. We know that this has been a very frustrating situation for all involved. We are working diligently to get power restored and everyone situated back in their homes.”
Meanwhile, CenterPoint Energy says the issue lies in the hands of the private property.
According to a CenterPoint spokesperson, the apartment complex needs to repair their power pole and underground infrastructure before they can reconnect the power.
CenterPoint Energy Statement
“CenterPoint Energy crews have confirmed the outage at The Ridley Apartments is due to damage to customer-owned equipment from a vehicular collision. CenterPoint crews have removed a wire and pole damaged in the accident, per the company’s safety protocols, but are unable to safely re-energize the complex until the customer-owned equipment has been repaired or replaced.”
The City of Houston says this isn’t a matter they would get involved in. However, they do have cooling centers open for any residents that are looking to escape the heat.
In the meantime, residents are stuck in the middle just waiting for the power to be turned back on.
There’s no estimate as to when that could happen.