CenterPoint Energy officials said in a July 9 news release that 1 million customers are expected to have power restored by July 10 following damage assessments across the Greater Houston region.
"The destructive winds caused significant damage to certain parts of the electric grid, including hard-hit areas such as Galveston, where 250 poles on a single circuit are down and Brazoria County, where hundreds of trees are uprooted and on power lines," the release reads.
As of the update, 1.58 million CenterPoint Energy customers and 206,678 Entergy customers are still without power.
"For this event, we are using all available resources to safely and quickly restore power to those who have been impacted. We understand how difficult it is to be without electricity in July and we are committed to working around-the-clock until every last customer is restored," said Lynnae Wilson, senior vice president of CenterPoint.
Updated 2 p.m., July 9
In an afternoon press conference held by the Texas Department of Emergency Management and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, state officials criticized the response time of CenterPoint Energy as 1.6 million customers remained without power in Houston.
"CenterPoint will have to answer for themselves," Patrick said during the July 9 press conference. "I'll tell you whether I'm satisfied or not when I have a full report of where their crews were, when they were asked to come in and how quickly they get power back."
During the conference, Patrick also said the Public Utility Commission of Texas would conduct a review of the power infrastructure and response times of energy cooperatives once power was fully restored.
"If they made mistakes beforehand, then that will be addressed by the PUC; that's their job," Patrick said. "I'm not looking at what they didn't do or should have done on Thursday or Friday or Saturday; I'm looking at what are they going to do now, and how fast are they going to get their crews out?"
As of 2 p.m., CenterPoint's outage tracker shows 1.64 million people without power, while Entergy Texas is reporting a remaining 210,279 customers without power.
Published 12:44 p.m., July 9
As the remnants of Hurricane Beryl move out of Texas, millions of people remain without power as CenterPoint and Entergy officials say the power restoration effort could take days amid warming weather in the Greater Houston region.
What you need to know
As of noon on July 9, a total of 1.9 million people in the Greater Houston region are still without power based on outage trackers from CenterPoint and Entergy."Approximately 80% of Montgomery County is still without power," Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough said on July 9 in a social media post. "[Entergy Texas is] focusing on the highest concentration of population in order to reach the most amount of people in the shortest amount of time."
The breakdown
According to preliminary damage assessments from Entergy and CenterPoint, significant damage was sustained to energy infrastructure. In a news release, Entergy said the damage sustained included the destruction of:
- 110 poles
- 30 transformers
- 450 spans of wire
What they're saying
- “While we tracked the projected path, intensity and timing for Hurricane Beryl closely for many days, this storm proved the unpredictability of hurricanes as it delivered a powerful blow across our service territory and impacted a lot of lives,” said Lynnae Wilson, senior vice president for CenterPoint Energy. “We know we have important work ahead for our customers who depend on us, especially during the hot summer months.”
- "Based on initial damage assessments, the company expects 50% of customers to be restored by the end of day Wednesday," Entergy Texas officials said in a news release on July 9. "Because restoration times are based on the severity of damage, it could take up to a week to restore power to customers in the hardest hit areas."
