HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston residents are growing increasingly frustrated as power outages persist following storm after storm. CenterPoint Energy has not provided a firm timeline for when power will be fully restored.
On Wednesday night, CenterPoint Energy estimated it could restore power to 1.1 million homes by Sunday night, with 400,000 customers expected to have power by Friday night and another 350,000 by Sunday night. However, around 400,000 customers may remain without power beyond Sunday, a full week after Hurricane Beryl made landfall.
The company did not specify which homes would have power restored first.
“This place looks like a war zone,” said Andrew Cantrell as he delivered supplies to his mother’s home.
As the second day without power turns into the third, many residents are debating whether to stay home or leave town. Cantrell drove from College Station to check on his mother, who preferred to stay home.
“She doesn’t like to leave. She’s got a generator and a fan, and she’s doing just fine,” Cantrell said.
CenterPoint Energy has declared this the largest outage in its history, with 2.26 million customers affected. In the first 48 hours, just under 1 million people were reconnected to the grid, but another million are still waiting.
City leaders have pressed CenterPoint, questioning if the company could have done more before the storm hit.
“In the fourth largest city in America, we have to be prepared even when we don’t anticipate,” Councilman Edward Pollard said.
CenterPoint leaders asserted that they took necessary precautions before the storm and will continue their efforts.
“We called in what we thought would be a good amount of resources, but as the storm hit us more directly, we called for more,” said Brad Tatunjian of CenterPoint. “After assessing the damage, we brought in an additional 2,000 personnel.”
CenterPoint has mobilized crews from over a dozen states and established 18 staging areas, the most ever required after a storm.
“We secured the resources and are working to secure more to be proactive,” Tatunjian added.
Cantrell, familiar with power outages, was not surprised it might take a few more days to restore power to his mother’s neighborhood, given the significant damage.
“There were some huge trees that came down across the lines here, so this area has some significant concerns that will take longer to address,” Cantrell noted.
CenterPoint has deployed nine mobile generators, with more on the way. These generators are being sent to water treatment facilities, cooling centers, and senior centers to ensure vulnerable people and essential infrastructure have power.
