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CenterPoint confirms 'significant damage' to their system following severe weather in Houston area
CenterPoint Energy warned customers to “be prepared for extended weather-related power outages.”
HOUSTON — CenterPoint Energy confirmed their system suffered “significant damage” after fast-moving storms hammered the Houston area Thursday.
At the peak of the power outages, more than 900,000 homes and businesses were left without power. Non-essential workers were urged to stay home after the outages led to some traffic lights being out.
CenterPoint Energy warned customers to “be prepared for extended weather-related power outages.”
The problems extended to the city’s suburbs, with emergency officials in neighboring Montgomery County describing the damage to transmission lines as “catastrophic” and warning that power could be impacted for several days.
CenterPoint released the following statement to customers. As of 5:40 a.m., there are more than 737,000 customers without power with large outages in west Houston and the Cypress area. That is down from 750,000 at 4:20 a.m.
“There has been damage to several of our facilities in our Houston-area service territory. As the line of severe weather has made its way through our region, it is now safe for our crews to begin assessing damage but can confirm we’ve experienced significant damage to our system. Restoration efforts will begin tonight (Thursday evening) but will ramp up in daylight hours as damage becomes more visible. We are committed to restoring power to our customers as safely and as quickly as possible.
“When restoring power, we begin with facilities vital to safety, health and welfare, such as hospitals, water treatment plants and public service facilities. While addressing key facilities, we follow our priority restoration process by making repairs to electrical facilities that will return power to the largest number of customers first. We then continue the restoration process by prioritizing repairs to benefit the greatest number of customers, until power is returned to everyone. Throughout the restoration process, we maintain contact with local emergency management agencies, news media and public officials.
“We’d like to remind our customers to stay at least 35 feet away from low-hanging, downed power lines or lines that could be in standing water and call 911 and report them to us at 713-207-2222.”