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The number of CenterPoint Energy customers still without power dropped below 100,000 Tuesday evening, five days after 100 mph winds ripped through the Houston region.
At least eight people have died as a result of last week’s storm, and nearly a million residents were left without electricity. The high-speed winds uprooted trees and blew out windows across the city. Two tornadoes touched down in the Cypress area and Waller County
At a press briefing in Houston’s near north side, a CenterPoint spokeswoman said 85 percent of customers impacted by Thursday’s storm have had their power restored.
The company still expects to “substantially complete” restorations by Wednesday evening, Centerpoint External Relations Manager Michelle Hundley said. She declined to define “substantially complete” by a percentage, but said to think of it as a return to “status quo.”
Hundley was joined at the briefing by Harris County Commissioners Adrian Garcia and Lesley Briones, Houston Mayor John Whitmire, and Metropolitan Transit Authority Chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock.
Metro has modified some routes and services to help accommodate storm recovery, Brock said, including using its park-and-ride operation to transport first responders to work. Park-and-ride services to the medical center, however, remain open to the public.
Local bus services also are running, though riders may experience some delays due to debris in the road, she said.
Metro light rail service has been restored on the Green and Purple lines; the northern portion of the Red line was being served by buses. Metrolift services were operating normally, Brock said.
More than 7,000 CenterPoint lineman from across the country are working to restore power throughout the region, Hundley said.
At a separate Tuesday afternoon press conference, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo praised the linemen from as far away as Missouri who have been laboring in the heat.
“That was the cavalry we’ve been waiting for,” Hidalgo said.
Hidalgo said people who do not have power restored by the end of Wednesday should call an electrician, saying the problem likely is on their end.
Weather damage, secondary issues slow restoration
Large downed trees and limbs in need of removal have slowed power restoration across the region, Hundley said, with Bellaire, Cypress, Baytown, Greenspoint, Humble and Spring Branch areas being the hardest hit.
Hundley also said some ongoing power failures could be blamed on “nested outages,” or secondary issues arising from unseen damage, along with damage to a property’s weatherhead – the entry point on a property’s roof where overhead power lines enter a building.
If most of your neighbors have regained power, but your home still is without, that most likely means your weatherhead has been damaged, Hundley said. That will require an electrician to repair, and cannot be fixed by CenterPoint employees, she added.
CenterPoint aware of all outages, despite inaccuracies
Despite reported inaccuracies with the company’s online interactive map feature, CenterPoint said in a Tuesday afternoon news release it was aware of all active power outages.
“Even if the interactive map shows an address or area as being restored and the customer has not yet received power, CenterPoint is aware of this outage,” the statement reads. “Please rest assured that the company is working to restore service as safely and quickly as possible to all customers without service.”
Hundley also said during Tuesday’s briefing that the map was meant to be CenterPoint’s best estimation of outages and expected repairs over time, not an exact measurement.
Officials tout unity, partnerships during storm recovery
Briones, Garcia and Whitmire each thanked CenterPoint for the utility’s continued efforts to restore power and took time to highlight resources available to residents in need.
Briones encouraged residents who have faced property damage to apply for disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as soon as possible. She also noted the cooling and distribution centers across the county remain available to provide refuge to residents in need.
Whitmire assured residents that no neighborhood is being overlooked during the recovery process, while also noting there still is work to be done.
More than 200 of the 401 traffic lights affected by the storm still were not functioning, Whitmire said. A six-block area downtown — Louisiana Street to Travis Street and McKinney Street to Polk Street — also remained closed off as workers continued to clean broken glass on the streets and repair shattered windows on the high-rises above.
Reporter Matt Sledge contributed to this story.
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