400K could be without power a week after Beryl, CenterPoint projects.
Posted by
Qale
Jul 11 '24, 02:07
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HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Houston residents told ABC13 that power keeps being knocked out storm after storm. They're trying to be patient as crews tell them there is no firm timeline on when power could be back.
On Wednesday night, CenterPoint Energy came up with a rough projection to restore 1.1 million homes, projecting 400,000 customers by Friday night and 350,000 by Sunday night.
Another 400,000 customers could remain offline past Sunday, a week after Beryl's landfall.
The company didn't identify which homes would be restored and when.
"A war zone is what this place looks like," Andrew Cantrell said as he dropped off supplies at his mother's home.
As day two fades into day three, customers without power are trying to decide whether to stay home or leave town. Cantrell drove from College Station to check on his mom, who wanted 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 declared that, with 2.26 million customers impacted, this is the largest outage in the company's history. In the first 48 hours, just under 1 million people were reconnected to the grid, but another million should expect to be waiting.
CenterPoint Energy customers grow frustrated after millions went without power due to Beryl and still don't know when to expect it to be restored.
On Wednesday, city leaders pressed CenterPoint, asking if the power company could have done more before Beryl 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 said they did what they needed to before the storm and will continue to do so after.
"We called in what we thought would be a good amount of resources, but as the storm was going through and we realized it was hitting us more directly, we called more. After our boots were on the ground, we started getting reports of the damage, and we got an additional 2,000," Brad Tatunjian, with CenterPoint, said.
CenterPoint said they've assembled crews from over a dozen states and built 18 staging areas, the most ever needed after a storm.
"We did secure the resources, and we do feel like we need to secure more, but again, I can assure you that is an effort to be proactive," Tatunjian said.
Cantrell said he's no stranger to power outages, and after seeing the destruction to his mom's neighborhood, he's not surprised it could be another few days till it's back.
"There were some significant, some huge trees that came down across the line here, so I think this area has some significant concerns that are going to take a little longer," Cantrell said.
CenterPoint said they've deployed nine mobile generators with more heading out. Those generators go to water treatment facilities, cooling centers, and senior centers to keep vulnerable people and infrastructure with power.
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