HOUSTON – With the stormy weather headed to the Houston area late Christmas Eve, it certainly doesn’t “look like Christmas,” but CenterPoint Energy says it is standing by to ensure our holiday plans don’t get canceled.
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In a news release, the energy giant said it has been continuously monitoring the changing weather and mobilizing resources to respond to weather impacts. This means having crews scheduled to work through the holiday and have a plan (if necessary) to dispatch any additional crews to help with restoration efforts.
“We’re continuing to monitor the line of storms and threat of severe weather expected in the Greater Houston area overnight on Christmas Eve‚” Matt Lanza, CenterPoint’s Meteorology Manager and member of CenterPoint’s Emergency Preparedness and Response team said in a news statement. “We’re keeping a particularly close watch on the potential for outages that could result from forecasted high wind gusts and lightning.”
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Meteorologist Justin Stapleton noted how Christmas Eve would be warm, muggy, and breezy with some light shower chances. Some of those storms could be strong or severe, bringing the chance for small hail and gusty winds later in the night into Christmas morning.
“While the front doesn’t look too menacing, it appears to be arriving in time for ole Kris Kringle to fly across most of greater Houston,” Stapleton said. “The current timing has us stormy through the overnight hours. This shouldn’t be a problem at all with Rudolph on Santa’s team - they’ve traveled through much worse.”
Regardless, CenterPoint Energy says it’s not taking any chances.
“With our entire Houston electric territory in the area of just marginal severe weather risk, we don’t anticipate widespread damage and related outages at this time, but we are coordinating our resources and response for all outcomes,” Lanza explained.
Considering how now every time it thunders, Houston residents (like me) feel a little uneasy wondering if the lights will go out. That’s why CenterPoint executives hope to give people peace of mind if Mother Nature tries to cancel Christmas.
“We know how important it is for homes and businesses to have the power they expect and deserve this holiday season,” Deryl Tumlinson, CenterPoint’s VP of Distribution Operations and Service Delivery said in a statement. “That is why we are preparing now to respond to any potential impacts to our system so we can safely and quickly restore service to our customers. While it’s our practice year-round, to respond quickly to any outages, we are even more focused to make sure that potential impacts are restored this Christmas and Hannukah holiday.”
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The move is another example of steps CenterPoint is taking to improve customer relations and promote transparency as part of the company’s “Preparedness Actions” which include:
- Executed its enhanced holiday staffing plan: In addition to crews working through the holiday, the company utilized predictive analysis based on similar storm events to enhance staffing plan for readiness in the event of system impacts.
- Activating additional frontline electric crews: Readied additional local full-time and contract frontline workers to help with the storm response across the Greater Houston region.
- Pre-staging additional material and equipment: Operations team has prepared additional inventory for deployment in the event of damage to poles and other equipment.
- Sharing customer communications: Sharing safety and preparedness actions with CenterPoint customers across social media and other platforms to help keep customers informed and prepared.
- Preparing to conduct patrols and assess damage: Once storms exit the area and it’s safe to do so, CenterPoint crews will be deployed across its service territory to assess damage.