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Thursday's severe thunderstorm brought hurricane-force winds and two tornadoes, shutting down power to nearly 1 million customers across the greater Houston area. CenterPoint Energy now says that after five days of 24/7 repair work, over 90% of those customers have power again.
According to CenterPoint, they remain on track to substantially complete their repair work by the end of today. They say the remaining outages will be primarily isolated instances in locations with more severe damage or where customer-owned equipment, like weatherheads, is damaged. CenterPoint has advised customers to reach out to a qualified electrician to repair any damages to weatherheads.
CenterPoint has also warned that during the duration of repairs, customers who have already had their power restored might lose power briefly due to ongoing maintenance. They have also warned customers to follow these safety tips:
- Stay at least 35 feet away from downed power lines and damaged utility equipment. Be especially mindful of downed lines that could be hidden and treat all downed lines as if they are energized.
- Be cautious around work crews and give them plenty of room to safely assess damages and make repairs.
- Only use a portable generator in a well-ventilated area and never run it inside or in a garage to avoid carbon monoxide fumes, which can be deadly.
- Never connect a portable electric generator directly to your building's electrical system during a power outage; electricity could backfeed into the power lines, potentially endangering CenterPoint Energy workers, mutual assistance workers or members of the public.
You can track CenterPoint's progress in power restoration via this link: https://gisoutagetracker.azurewebsites.net/