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HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Power continues to be restored in many homes across southeast Texas after Hurricane Nicholas ravaged parts of the area.
Just after 9 p.m. Wednesday, CenterPoint Energy’s outage tracker counted more than 42,000 customers remained without power. This was vast improvement from the more than 460,000 customers who were left powerless in the middle of Tuesday.
#Houston: Crews today drove down the outage count to ~40K (from a peak of 460K). As we sign off social media for the day, our crews, supported by mutual assistance crews, continue to work through the night. Read the latest updates on your area: https://t.co/yWR7rjUBMi #hounews pic.twitter.com/wN6K0OHZks
— CenterPoint Energy Alerts (@CNPalerts) September 16, 2021
The utility said 3,200 crews were out in the Houston region working to restore service, and most of the outages should be restored by the end of the day.
While a majority of repairs were expected to be completed Wednesday night, company representatives said some isolated outages may take until the end of the week to resolve.
“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
The utility also added that its inspection team surveyed from the air transmission and distribution damage in west Galveston.
Our inspection team took to the air to survey transmission and distribution damage in West Galveston. Their aerial assessments prove valuable in planning our on-the-ground restoration efforts. #Nicholas #galvnews pic.twitter.com/Ktq0u5hu82
— CenterPoint Energy Alerts (@CNPalerts) September 15, 2021
Closer to the Gulf Coast, another roughly 13,000 customers were still without power Wednesday night, according to electricity provider Texas-New Mexico Power.
TNMP advised customers that complete power restoration is expected to be complete by 6 p.m. Friday.
CenterPoint says residents do not need to call and report outages because the company can see who is affected through smart meters. Instead, residents are asked to keep phone lines open for electric or natural gas emergency calls only.
CenterPoint customers can sign up to receive text messages, emails, or phone calls to alert you when the power is out for your home, and get updates on how the work is progressing to have electricity restored.
A third of CenterPoint’s crews were in Louisiana to help restore power in that state after Hurricane Ida, but those workers returned Sunday to rest.