TOMBALL – A planned power outage will leave many without power ahead of the Easter holiday.
Centerpoint Entergy is cutting off the lights to a Tomball neighborhood on Good Friday when many people are off work and children are off school.
Richard Hudson said his northwest Harris County home is the family gathering location for holidays, and Good Friday is no different. But like his neighbors, he will have to find somewhere else to be as Centerpoint crews work to put up a traffic light nearby.
“We’ll have four grandkids over here, my brother, my sister-in-law, my mother-in-law who’s 95, you know, she’s not going to enjoy the heat, “Hudson said. “We’ll just have to have it somewhere else.”
The retired construction site inspector received a letter from Centerpoint this week notifying him of the outage.
“Well, I can’t believe they’re doing this on Good Friday. Who thought that was a good idea,” he pondered.
The company says 140 customers would be impacted for up to eight hours.
A statement to KPRC reads, in part:
“We try to avoid nights and weekends as more customers are home during those times. In this case, we also had to coordinate with Tomball Independent School District school campuses that would be impacted.” The spokesperson writes, they consulted Tomball ISD leaders, “our planning team determined that conducting the work on Friday would be less disruptive, including for students at the affected campuses.”
Hudson and his wife are now trying to figure out which family member will host Good Friday.
“We’re not going to have lights. Really no purpose of us being here,” Hudson said.
In the letter to homeowners, Centerpoint notes there is an alternative date if the weather postpones the Friday date. It’s set for Saturday, April 23.
“That’s still a Saturday,” said Hudson. “That’s still open. Why not postpone it until then?” Hudson asked.
Centerpoint Energy’s full statement:
CenterPoint Energy is focused on providing reliable electric service to all of our customers. The upcoming work scheduled in the area of Cypress Rosehill Road and Juergen Road was requested by Harris County to prepare for the installation of new traffic lights.
As we develop the plans for these necessary planned outages, we strive to minimize impact on our customers. For that reason, we try to avoid nights and weekends as more customers are home during those times. In this case, we also had to coordinate with Tomball Independent School District school campuses that would be impacted. Our planning team determined that conducting the work on Friday would be less disruptive, including for students at the affected campuses. Good Friday is a holiday for our union contract crews and they will be working overtime for this project, so the decision to complete the work on this day is not related to cost savings.
Our contract crews will make every effort to minimize the duration of the outage, which is planned to begin at 8 a.m. on Friday, April 15 and could last up to eight hours.