About 1.4 million customers in Greater Houston remained without power as of Wednesday afternoon, as utility companies scrambled to restore electricity with temperatures topping 90 degrees for a second straight day.
The region’s three largest electric utilities each estimated that nearly half or more of their customers would see power restored by the end of Wednesday, though some could still be waiting several days.
About 1.28 million CenterPoint customers of the 2.26 million customers who lost power didn’t have electricity as of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. CenterPoint officials have said they expect to restore power to 1 million of the customers who saw outages by the end of Wednesday.
The company has not provided a timeline for the remaining customers, though it expects to release one Thursday morning. CenterPoint has said residents in harder-hit areas could see “prolonged outages.”
Hurricane Beryl “more heavily impacted” Houston’s electric infrastructure than originally anticipated, causing widespread flooding, infrastructure damage and at least 10 deaths.
Company officials said about 12,000 frontline workers from out of the area are laboring to restore power. They are prioritizing health and public safety facilities.
CenterPoint maintains the systems that deliver power to nearly all residents of Harris and Fort Bend counties, along with some other corners of Greater Houston. In total, about 2.8 million Houstonians rely on CenterPoint, according to the company.
More beryl coverage
CenterPoint’s power outage map remains down. Here’s where to find more electricity info.
by Clare Amari
Suburban counties still out
About 170,000 customers served by Entergy and Texas-New Mexico Power in Greater Houston’s suburban counties also were without power.
Entergy reported about 90,000 customers remained without power in Montgomery County as of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. About 13,000 Entergy customers in Liberty County and 6,000 customers in Galveston County also were without power.
Entergy officials said they expected about half of their 219,000 customers without power as of Tuesday morning would see power restored by the end of Wednesday. However, customers in the Conroe, New Caney and Cleveland regions could remain without power until Sunday, Entergy officials said.
Texas-New Mexico Power reported about 27,000 customer outages in Galveston County and 30,000 customer outages in Brazoria County as of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. The utility said earlier this week that customers in the two counties would see power return by Wednesday evening, but those estimates have been extended to Saturday.
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