HOUSTON – With mounting frustrations against CenterPoint Energy over how the utility giant has handled another severe weather crisis, a new, interactive restoration map hopes to alleviate some of the tensions Houston residents have while they anxiously (and persistently) ask themselves: “When am I getting my power back?”
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Bear in mind, this map is not mobile-friendly, so if you’re going to use it, make sure you’re using a computer.
In a press release, CenterPoint confirmed it restored electricity to more than 850,000 customers - 1/3 of the 2.6 million customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl. This comes days after CenterPoint confirmed to KPRC 2 digital producer Christian Terry it expects to restore power to 1 million customers “by the end of the day on Wednesday.”
During a follow-up interview Tuesday morning, live on KPRC 2+ with CenterPoint’s Director of Communications, Alyssia Oshodi, KPRC 2 reporter Haley Hernandez asked “What about the other half?” In short, Oshodi said it was hard to say but after completing their damage assessment by Wednesday, CenterPoint will be able to have a better idea. Residents in the hardest-hit areas, however, may be without power for longer.
This hasn’t stopped Houston residents from shaking their heads in frustration, or even finding alternative ways, like using the Whataburger app (of all things) to find out if the power has come back to their neighborhoods.
“We have made solid progress and exceeded the number of customer restorations following Hurricane Ike, but we have a lot of important work ahead, especially in the hardest-hit areas where the work will be more complex and time-consuming,” Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President, Electric Business said in a press statement Tuesday evening. “We know we have a lot of customers counting us to do our jobs as safely and quickly as possible, and that will continue to be our highest priority.”
Navigating the website’s restoration map has to be done on a computer because it’s not mobile-friendly. CenterPoint Energy’s map shows two types: one highlighting where the hardest-hit areas were and which areas are currently being assessed, assigned for repair, or have been re-energized.
Keep in mind, that the map has a disclaimer noting it is updated periodically and may be delayed, so CenterPoint still encourages people to enroll in its Power Alert Service.
CenterPoint hopes this will alleviate some of the tensions customers have but also provide some type of answer of when power can get restored in their area. Especially since they discontinued their outage map, which a lot of folks turned to as a source of comfort. A spokesperson told KPRC 2 Wednesday morning they are working on at least two new maps, but she could not go into more detail aside from that.
“The original map; what happened is we had too many people, and there were a lot of third-party companies as well that were trying to read the map all at the same time, and it just caused issues, so we had to take it down,” Michelle Hundley said. “We are currently working on another map that’s going to be cloud-based so that we don’t have that same issue going forward that should be released, fairly soon. And then we’re going to have another map at the beginning of next year that should be better, and provide additional information to our customers.
“So we hear our customers, we hear their frustration and we are working on a solution that will address those frustrations,” she concluded. “In the meantime, we also heard our customers about restoration status. And so that’s what we did. We created a restoration status tracker. So you can utilize this, to just look at where you are in the restoration process. And we hope this answers some questions, throughout the rest of the restoration process.”
To access CenterPoint Energy’s restoration map, click here.