CenterPoint power outage left 680,000 customers without electricity Saturday

More than 680,000 CenterPoint customers in Greater Houston are starting the weekend without power, six days after Hurricane Beryl knocked out electricity to 2.26 million people.

CenterPoint officials say they will have power restored to about half of those customers by Sunday night. Some could still have to wait several days. The company estimates that some areas with more extensive damage could be without power as late as Friday, July 19.

Some customers have a clearer idea of ​​when power will be restored, while others don’t know how much longer they’ll be in the dark. CenterPoint continues to add neighborhood-level restoration time estimates to its outage map, days after a botched rollout added to growing frustration with the area’s main electricity provider.

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Some customers may experience a “nested outage,” meaning their home is without power in an area where power is present on the CenterPoint map. CenterPoint does not provide estimated restoration times for nested outages, and it is unknown how many customers are affected.

The widespread and prolonged power outages this week have sparked widespread criticism of CenterPoint’s preparedness for Beryl and accusations that its response was disorganized and ineffective. The Texas Public Utilities Commission, the state’s utility regulator, urged the company on Thursday to do a better job of communicating with its more than 1 million customers who are still without power.

While this weekend’s rain may provide some relief from last week’s sweltering heat, it could slow the process of restoring power.

CenterPoint crews can generally continue working in the rain, but they must stop for shelter if they see lightning until they decide it is safe to continue, spokesman Paul Lock said.

Lock said the company called in an additional 1,000 crews from outside Houston on Friday to help with restoration efforts, Lock said, bringing the total to 13,000. The crews are being deployed from 18 staging sites throughout the region, the most robust response to a storm in the company’s history.

“Everyone here is exhausted, but we will continue to work around the clock to get everyone back on their feet as quickly as possible,” Lock said Friday.

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