Houston Area Power Outages: Thousands of CenterPoint Energy Customers Lose Power Amid Tornado Watch

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Nearly a million Houston-area residents were without power as southeast Texas faced severe thunderstorms and heavy rain.

But after the storms passed, CenterPoint Energy confirmed to ABC13 that its downtown building and system were damaged Thursday.

“As the line of severe weather has passed through our region, our teams can now safely begin to assess the damage, but can confirm that we have experienced significant damage to our system,” the energy giant wrote in a statement.

This raises questions about the actual number of customers affected. However, CenterPoint says restoration efforts have already begun and will intensify Friday morning as the damage becomes more visible.

“We are committed to restoring power to our customers as safely and quickly as possible,” the company wrote.

An ABC13 Weather Alert Day was in effect through Thursday evening.

According to CenterPoint Energy’s outage tracking system, as of 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 852,412 customers were without power.

As of 6:40 p.m., that number was 477,207 and grew rapidly within an hour.

As of 7:30 p.m., the outage tracking system reported that 20,338 had been restored over a 24-hour period.

As of 10:50 p.m., the outage tracking system did not indicate the number of affected customers.

The majority of reported outages occurred in northwest Houston, inside and outside the I-610 loop.

If you are traveling to and from Houston, you can check your flight status on the National Airspace System.

MORE WEATHER COVERAGE:

Houston-area school and college closures and delays

ABC13 Weather Alert Day: Severe T Storm Watch Issued for Southeast Texas until 8 p.m.