In the wake of Beryl, a Category 1 Hurricane later downgraded to a tropical storm, over 2.3 million Houston residents lost power. With over a million Houston residents and businesses without power, CenterPoint Energy published a statement Monday night pledging to restore power by end of day, Wednesday.
Beryl reached landfall in Texas a little before 4 am Monday morning as a Category 1 Hurricane. Its landfall brought heavy rain, high winds, and widespread flooding through the Houston area. It also spurred multiple hurricane, tropical storm, storm surge, and flood warnings in affected areas. Within the span of a few hours, power outages quickly escalated across the City of Houston affected over 2.3 million CenterPoint Energy and Entergy customers.
“While we tracked the projected path, intensity and timing for Hurricane Beryl closely for many days, this storm proved the unpredictability of hurricanes as it delivered a powerful blow across our service territory and impacted a lot of lives,” said Senior Vice President of CenterPoint Energy, Lynnae Wilson.
“We know we have important work ahead for our customers who depend on us, especially during the hot summer months.”
A running joke floated among online Houston communities amid the approach and landfall of Beryl has been that “Houstonians aren’t afraid of a hurricane, we’re afraid of not having A/C during 100-degree weather”. This Tuesday, a Heat Advisory is in effect until 7 am Wednesday morning. Forecasters predict that temperatures reaching 95 degrees with heat indexes up to 105 degrees.
As of the publication of this article, 233,203 Entergy customers are also affected by power outages. The energy company stated that restoration could take a few days.
In a statement released Monday night, CenterPoint stated that it had restored power to 285,000 customers.