CenterPoint Energy : restores more than 640,000 customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl

CenterPoint Energy restores more than 640,000 customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl Tuesday-July-9-2024

​Houston - July 9, 2024 - CenterPoint Energy is working around-the-clock to restore power to the 2.26 million customers affected by Hurricane Beryl. The storm significantly impacted CenterPoint's service territory, with damaging winds reaching 97-miles-per-hour in Brazoria County, 89-miles-per-hour in Harris County, and 78-miles-per-hour in Galveston County, according to the Houston-Galveston National Weather Service. ​

The destructive winds caused significant damage to certain parts of the electric grid, including hard-hit areas such as Galveston, where 250 poles on a single circuit are down and Brazoria County, where hundreds of trees are uprooted and on power lines.

As of 3 p.m. CT, approximately 24 hours since it was safe to release its crews into the field, CenterPoint has restored power to more than 640,000 customers, with approximately 1.6 million still affected. Based on current progress with its damage assessment and restoration efforts, CenterPoint continues to expect to have 1 million of the 2.26 million impacted customers restored by the end of the day tomorrow. As restoration progresses, CenterPoint will provide customers with more detailed service restoration expectations.

CenterPoint tracked Hurricane Beryl from its initial development and took steps to secure mutual assistance support before the storm made landfall. Crews were positioned in locations where they would be safe when the storm hit. As soon as it was safe to do so yesterday, CenterPoint deployed crews into the field to begin damage assessment, cut-and-clear and restoration. The company has secured nearly 12,000 frontline workers to support restoration efforts.

"We want our customers to know that our preparation for hurricane season is something we focus on year-round. For this event, we are using all available resources to safely and quickly restore power to those who have been impacted. We understand how difficult it is to be without electricity in July and we are committed to working around-the-clock until every last customer is restored," said Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President, Electric Business. "We appreciate the hard work from mutual assistance utilities and first responders who are supporting our efforts."

The company continues to prioritize its restoration efforts on essential facilities critical to health and public safety. CenterPoint has deployed its mobile generation units, including an emergency facility, a cooling center and a non-profit organization serving families with seriously ill children.

CenterPoint will continue to provide general outage information such as total outage counts - updated approximately every 5 to 15 minutes - at CenterPointEnergy.com/StormCenter. CenterPoint's electric customers are encouraged to enroll in Power Alert Service^® to receive outage details and community-specific restoration updates as they become available. For information and updates, follow @CenterPoint for updates during inclement weather events.