HOUSTON – CenterPoint Energy says thousands of resources and approximately 11,500 workers have been mobilized to help restore power to over two million customers who have lost electricity from Hurricane Beryl.
The company said it had been preparing for and closely monitoring the expected impacts of Hurricane Beryl; however, the storm veered off the originally expected course and more heavily impacted the company’s customers, systems and infrastructure than previously anticipated. That resulted in outages to more than 2.26 million customers at its peak.
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“We are mobilizing all of our available resources, as well as mutual assistance resources from other utility companies, to begin the process of quickly and safely restoring power to our customers,” said Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President, Electric Business at CenterPoint. “We understand how difficult it is to be without power for any amount of time, especially in the heat. We are laser focused on the important and time-sensitive work that lies ahead.”
The timing is uncertain. Some CenterPoint customers received this text message Monday afternoon:
Hurricane Beryl continues impacting our area with heavy rain and strong winds, resulting in widespread power outages. We are aware of your outage, and damage assessment and restoration efforts will begin as soon as it is safe to do so. Due to the severity of the storm, outages may last for several days and our ability to communicate restoration updates may be delayed or unavailable at times. Your patience and understanding are appreciated during this challenging time. Text STOP to unsubscribe.
CenterPoint says the initial focus in the storm’s aftermath will be assessing the type of damage to the electric system and rerouting power on unaffected power lines. Concurrent with the damage assessment, crews have already begun a cut-and-clear process, which allows crews to identify and isolate areas of damage to more quickly restore customers along sections that are not impacted.
“Upon completion of the damage assessment, CenterPoint will begin publishing estimates for substantial restoration of the system. As restoration progresses, CenterPoint will supplement with more granular service restoration times. Customers in the hardest-hit areas may experience prolonged outages and should prepare accordingly,” the company said. “To supplement the company’s 1,500 internal resources, CenterPoint is bringing in an additional 10,000 resources from other utilities to assist with the restoration efforts. CenterPoint is also expected to increase its staging sites across the area to 12.”
The company is assessing the deployment of its mobile generation units to provide temporary power restoration to certain critical facilities, such as cooling centers, healthcare facilities, first responder locations, senior centers, and educational centers.
“CenterPoint will continue to provide general outage information such as total outage counts – updated approximately every 5 to 15 minutes – at CenterPointEnergy.com/StormCenter. CenterPoint’s electric customers are encouraged to enroll in Power Alert Service® to receive outage details and community-specific restoration updates as they become available. At this time, there has been no significant impact to the company’s natural gas service system in south Texas, along the Texas Coast and across the Greater Houston area,” the company said.
Some CenterPoint customers received a message on their phones saying power may not be restored for several days.
“Hurricane Beryl continues impacting our area with heavy rain and strong winds, resulting in widespread power outages. We are aware of your outage, and damage assessment and restoration efforts will begin as soon as it is safe to do so. Due to the severity of the storm, outages may last for several days and our ability to communicate restoration updates may be delayed or unavailable at times. Your patience and understanding are appreciated during this challenging time,” the message read.