CenterPoint expects to have majority of remaining customer outages restored by the end of the day

HOUSTON – CenterPoint Energy said that it expects to have the majority of the remaining less than 80,000 customer outages restored by the end of Wednesday.

In addition, mutual assistance crews will be assisting with the restoration process Wednesday.

“We have made excellent progress so far safely restoring service to our customers who were impacted by Hurricane Nicholas, and our crews continue to work diligently and around-the-clock to address all remaining outages as safely and quickly as possible,” said Kenny Mercado, Executive Vice President, Electric Utility, CenterPoint Energy. “We appreciate our customers’ continued patience and understanding as we work to address the more challenging outage issues caused by the storm’s extensive damage to some parts of our system.”

The company said it has restored service to more than 380,000 electric customers.

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CenterPoint Energy released the following statement as of Tuesday evening:

“The company has restored power to nearly 300,000 electric customers over the last 12 hours, down from a peak outage count of more than 460,000 at 8 a.m. CT this morning. Of the 2.6 million CenterPoint Energy customers in the Greater Houston area, more than 93 percent currently have power. At this time, CenterPoint Energy is down to approximately 160,000 customers without power.”

Scott Doyle, executive vice president, Natural Gas, said via the news release, “Our natural gas distribution system in the Greater Houston area is functioning normally; however, crews are responding to natural gas leak calls primarily due to toppled trees which have uprooted gas lines.

“Customers need to call us if they smell natural gas or see a damaged line,” he added. “Gas Operations crews have begun system assessment system where the storm has passed and it’s safe to do so.”

For more information about how to report outages, call CenterPoint Energy at 713-207-2222 or 800-332-7143.

Customers can also sign up for alerts about power outages at centerpointenergy.com.

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Houston Public Works warns of many traffic lights that are out. Flashing red lights should be reported to 3-1-1. CenterPoint will need to be called for lights that remain completely out.