CenterPoint Energy publishes initial restoration status tracker and provides customer restoration update

HOUSTON, TX -- In the approximately 30 hours since Hurricane Beryl exited CenterPoint Energy's service area yesterday afternoon, the company has continued its progress restoring power to the 2.26 million impacted customers. As of 8 p.m. CT, CenterPoint has restored electricity to more than 850,000 customers, representing more than one-third of customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl.

• Restored more than one-third of outages within first 30 hours of restoration process
• Damage assessment well underway; CenterPoint remains confident in restoring 1 million customers within 48 hours of storm's exit from area
• Company providing initial restoration status tracker for customers?

With damage assessment well underway, CenterPoint remains confident it will restore 1 million impacted customers within 48 hours of the restoration process. Following the hurricane's exit from its system, as part of its damage assessment process, the company walked approximately 4,500 miles of its circuits on foot and supplemented its damage assessment by using helicopter and drone surveillance to inspect damage across its service territory, and in particular, some of the hardest-hit areas in its service territory, including Baytown, Bellaire, Brazoria, Galveston and South Houston.

Although the “dirty side" of Hurricane Beryl directly impacted a majority of the company's 5,000-square-mile system, resulting in downed trees, branches and other debris affecting its distribution poles and wires, CenterPoint's overall system largely operated as intended. In fact, the backbone of CenterPoint's grid, including its transmission towers, high-voltage lines and substations, did not experience significant damage. The outages the company has addressed to this point were largely related to its distribution system, which is designed to lock out in order to prevent further damage from debris and protect public safety. Because of this design feature, CenterPoint was able to safely and quickly restore these outages. As damage assessment progresses, it will continue to address these debris-related outages. To the extent there is structural damage, outages may be prolonged.

“We have made solid progress and exceeded the number of customer restorations following Hurricane Ike, but we have a lot of important work ahead, especially in the hardest-hit areas where the work will be more complex and time-consuming," said Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President, Electric Business. “We know we have a lot of customers counting us to do our jobs as safely and quickly as possible, and that will continue to be our highest priority."

CenterPoint recognizes that its customers need information about the status of their service. The company has published a new tracker that will provide initial restoration status for customers. As CenterPoint completes its damage assessment in the coming days, it will provide more detailed information about expected restoration timing.

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.