Thousands without natural gas service on Houston's south side

HOUSTON – CenterPoint Energy has made progress restoring service following a natural gas outage affecting about 2,500 customers between Highway 288 and Cullen, north and south of Beltway 8.

Here is their latest update:

"CenterPoint Energy crews continue to restore gas service to affected customers in southeast Houston.  We’ve been able to restore gas service to approximately half of the impacted customers. Our crews are making a third pass to homes that we haven’t been able to restore because no one was home and as customers return home our restoration success rate will increase dramatically."

"If no one is home or if an adult over the age of 18 is not at the service address when our technician arrives, we will leave a door hanger with instructions to call us to come back out and restore service. We will have service technicians on standby throughout the night so we encourage customers to call us when they get home."

“Safety is our number one priority as we work to restore natural gas service,” said April Parra, operations manager for CenterPoint Energy. “We completed the process of turning off each customer’s natural gas meter, and have begun the restoration process; we’ve been able to restore gas service to approximately 25 percent of impacted customers.

“Once the meters were turned off, our certified service technicians began making a first pass to each home or business to perform a series of safety checks to ensure there was no risk involved in restoring gas service,” Parra added.

“We plan to make a second pass to homes that we were not able to restore and anticipate that will be completed later this evening. If no one is home or if an adult over the age of 18 is not at the service address when our technician arrives, we will leave a door hanger with instructions to call us to come back out and restore service. We will have service technicians on standby throughout the night so we encourage customers to call us when they get home. We anticipate restoring gas service to all impacted customers this evening provided we have access.”

For updates, follow CenterPoint Energy on Twitter: @CNPAlerts.

CenterPoint release:

"CenterPoint Energy making progress restoring natural gas service following outage in south Houston Approximately 25% of customers have been restored Customers need to be home so technicians can perform safety checks and restore service."

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