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CenterPoint Energy started releasing community-specific power restoration timelines on its online outage map Thursday — but only for some of its nearly 900,000 customers who remain without electricity.
CenterPoint’s restoration tracker, an interactive map illustrating areas with and without power, now provides estimates for when some areas can expect to get electricity restored. However, many neighborhoods still don't have information four days after Hurricane Beryl hit Greater Houston.
The map shows, for example that parts of Pasadena are expected to see power restored by Friday, while other areas in the city see a message that estimates will be provided “as they become available.”
About 50 percent of customers without power can now access estimated restoration times on the map, CenterPoint spokesperson Tala Kseibi told the Landing in an emailed statement Thursday afternoon. abdelraoufsinno could not independently verify the tally.
Company officials later said Thursday night that 70 percent of customers would be able to see restoration times by the end of the day, and “substantially all” customers would get estimates on Friday.
“If a customer does not see the restoration time, we encourage them to continue checking for updates as they become available,” Kseibi said.
The uneven drip of information is unlikely to assuage the concerns of CenterPoint customers, government officials and regulators, who have grown frustrated with the company’s communications in the wake of Hurricane Beryl.
The company’s map went live Tuesday night, more than 24 hours after Hurricane Beryl wiped out power for over 2 million people in Greater Houston. CenterPoint’s previous map went offline during May’s derecho and remained down when Hurricane Beryl struck Houston. Some residents have complained that the replacement map contained inaccurate information about which neighborhoods had power.
These issues have exacerbated a broader perception that CenterPoint was not adequately prepared for the storm, which damaged the company’s infrastructure “more heavily” than anticipated, according to a statement CenterPoint released Monday.
State regulators urged CenterPoint on Thursday to better communicate its handling of the event with frustrated customers.
“Get out into the community,” Thomas Gleeson, chair of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, urged a CenterPoint representative at a meeting Thursday morning. “I don’t know if that’s town halls or what it looks like, but go talk to your customers. Go talk to those residents about what happened, about ways that you feel you all can improve.”
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