Houston, Texas experienced widespread power outages following Hurricane Beryl, with around 240,000 customers initially affected. As of Monday evening, CenterPoint Energy had restored power to 92% of impacted customers, leaving approximately 132,000 still without electricity. The company aims to restore power to 98% of customers by the end of Wednesday. However, some households have been waiting for a week, growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of electricity and air conditioning.
One particular neighborhood that has been hit hard is Houston’s Third Ward. On CenterPoint’s outage tracker, the area is labeled as energized with potential localized outages, or nested outages. This term was previously used in May after a derecho caused smaller outages than Beryl. CenterPoint Energy explains that nested outages occur when the main issue has been fixed, but other isolated issues like damage to fuses, transformers, meters, and electric lines continue to cause outages in specific areas. These secondary issues can arise from unseen damage or overloaded systems.
Another reason for varying restoration times is that customers on the same street or neighborhood might be on different electric circuits. Each circuit may have different levels of damage or may be repaired in a different sequence. Therefore, while one circuit is fully restored, another might still be undergoing repairs. CenterPoint advises customers to check the restoration map to determine if their outage is at a circuit level or more localized.
CenterPoint Energy has been working diligently to restore power, directing 14,000 crew members on 16-hour shifts. These crews have covered over 8,500 miles of electric lines, cleared nearly 19,000 weakened trees that were impacting the lines, repaired or replaced over 2,100 poles, and deployed 28 mobile generation units to temporarily restore power to critical facilities like cooling centers, hospitals, senior living facilities, and water treatment plants.
However, despite their efforts, some ABC13 viewers have been informed that their power will remain off until Friday. CenterPoint Energy acknowledges that more resiliency work should have been done prior to Hurricane Beryl, and they are actively assessing their system and updating information regularly.
In conclusion, the restoration efforts in Houston following Hurricane Beryl have been ongoing, with CenterPoint Energy restoring power to the majority of customers. However, nested outages and varying levels of damage on different circuits have caused delays in restoration. CenterPoint Energy is working tirelessly to rectify the issues and has implemented measures to temporarily restore power to critical facilities. While some customers may still face a wait until Friday, the company is committed to resolving the situation as quickly as possible.
