Thousands of Houston-area families struggle without power after Hurricane Laura

Many families across Montgomery County were affected by the loss of power Thursday after Hurricane Laura hit Texas and Louisiana. Trina Brown-Boyd lives in the Oak Ridge area, where families lost power for almost eight hours.

In this community, when homes lose power, they lose water too.

“With the heat it was unbearable,” said Brown-Boyd.

Brown-Boyd takes care of her brother, T.J., and her brother’s friend, Nathan, who both have special needs and require a lot of care. When the power went out, the heat quickly rose inside their home making it a super hard day for everyone.

“They get antsy when they don’t have their electronics,” she said. “So when stuff started to die we had to figure out something to do. I got ready to cook. (But) my house is all-electric, so I couldn’t cook.”

She said she called Entergy looking for answers all day long. She finally found some information online. Entergy’s website showed more than 100,000 customers in Montgomery County were without power for a huge chunk of the day.

“We have started periodic power outages for customers in Texas at the request of (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) as a last resort to prevent a more extensive, prolonged power outage that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid. There are no ETRs at this time,” Entergy wrote on Twitter Thursday.

Entergy told KPRC 2 the power outages are due to the damage from Hurricane Laura to their transmission system in East Texas and West Louisiana.

Many said they would have liked some advance notice from Entergy.

“I understand and my heart goes out to the people that are in distress right now, but at the same time at least let us know so we can prepare,” said Brown-Boyd.

Due to the ongoing outages, MD Anderson, The Woodlands, Montgomery ISD, Splendora ISD, and Conroe ISD will all be closed Friday.