Houston power outage update: 98% of CenterPoint customers restored
HOUSTON - CenterPoint Energy has been working since July 8 to restore power to the more than 2,000,000 Houston area residents who lost power in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.
As of Thursday, more than 98% of customers have had their power restored with only 18,838 customers still affected as of noon July 18. They are expecting full service back for all eligible customers by Friday, July 19.
Houstonians were frustrated with the company as restoration efforts seemed to have taken a while, even allegedly turning deadly. A 70-year-old woman was found dead in the Beringwood complex, which has a large population of elderly and immobile residents.
Authorities can not confirm the woman's cause of death at this point, and there is no official indication that it was caused by heat, however, residents at the complex feel her death was due to the lack of power for such a long time in such high temperatures.
Entergy reports 1,750 of their customers are still without power as of July 18 at 12:30 p.m. and Texas-New Mexico Power reports 142 customers are still affected as of 12:30 p.m.
In a Houston City Council meeting on Wednesday, Houstonians and city councilmembers alike expressed their frustration over the power company's response to the storm.
"We are known for being Houston strong, but I can tell you it feels like Houston's tired, Houston's frustrated. You can't say you are well prepared, and then you go a week without power from a Cat 1. What if it was a Cat 2? What if it was a Cat 3?," questioned Councilman Edward Pollard. "So, we have to be fully transparent with the public and let them know we did not do all that we can do from a City standpoint. We are not fully mobilized. From a CenterPoint standpoint, we were not fully mobilized. We were scrambling after the fact and the City felt it."
Even Mayor John Whitmire was critical of the city's monopoly energy supplier, CenterPoint. "We will hold CenterPoint accountable. We will do it from City Hall, and obviously, as I was, two days ago, with the Governor to see what can be done. The State really has the authority. CenterPoint does not have a resource problem, except they are not getting their product to the users of electricity. They got to do better. They have got to communicate better."