HOUSTON– Power was expected to be restored by Wednesday night to nearly all Houston-area homes and businesses left in the dark by last week’s deadly storm, according to officials.
But possibly up to 20,000 customers will have to wait until the weekend for their lights to come back on.
About 98% of residents and businesses should have their power fully restored by the end of Wednesday, Brad Tutunjian, vice president of regulatory policy at CenterPoint Energy, told Houston City Council members during their weekly meeting.
At the height of the power outage, around 922 thousand customers were left without service. By Wednesday night, that number had dropped to about 42,000.
“We are working 24 hours a day to try to get them in as quickly and safely as possible. I would also like to recognize the patience of our customers,” said Tutunjian.
The May 16 storm left at least eight people dead, caused widespread destruction and paralyzed much of Houston. Storms and hurricane-force winds ravaged the city, reducing businesses and other structures to piles of rubble, uprooting trees and shattering glass in downtown skyscrapers. The storm spawned two tornadoes — one near the northwest Houston suburb of Cypress and another in Waller County, located northwest of Houston.
The National Weather Service determined the storm was a weather event known as a derecho, meteorologist Jeff Evans said. A derecho is a widespread, long-running windstorm associated with a band of fast-moving showers or thunderstorms, according to the weather service.
The derecho had hurricane-force winds in a 5- to 8-mile range in the Houston area, with some pockets of winds reaching up to 100 mph, Evans said. The straight-line winds of a derecho can be more damaging than a tornado because they can last for several minutes compared to the instantaneous impact of a tornado, Evans said.
Tutunjian said 2% of customers — about 20,000 — who will likely still be without power after Wednesday live in areas with “significant damage” to equipment.
Others need transformer or fuse repairs in their neighborhoods and that can take time, Tutunjian said. And other customers will have to repair damaged electrical equipment they are responsible for in their homes before they can get power back.
“The 98 (percent) is impressive, unless you’re one of the 20,000,” said Mayor John Whitmire, adding that CenterPoint did a good job overall in restoring power.
Tutunjian said he expects crews to continue working through the weekend.
The Houston area was expected to experience potentially dangerous heat this weekend, with temperatures and humidity levels higher than normal for May, according to the National Weather Service.
The deadly storm occurred while the Houston area and several north Texas counties were still recovering from flooding caused by heavy rains in late April and early May.
Houston City Council member Abbie Kamin said last week’s storm should spark discussions about fortifying power lines and other infrastructure in Houston.
The city of more than 2 million people is one of the most flood-prone metropolitan areas in the country and has long experience dealing with devastating weather conditions, including hurricanes.
Tutunjian said CenterPoint has been working to make its system more resilient, but more studies are needed.
“We have some difficult issues we need to talk about. And again, we’re not even into hurricane season yet and we still have thousands of customers without power right now,” Kamin said.
Hurricane season begins on June 1st.
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