Work crews return from Houston after helping restore power

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A team of workers from Nueces Electric Cooperative is back after a pretty tough mission. They helped restore power to millions of Houston-area residents.

The seven-man crew spent more than a week working with other crews from across the state to restore service to Houston residents.

It was a difficult job because Beryl caused a lot of damage to Houston’s power grid. When the NEC crew arrived, the repairs were expected to take three weeks, but they finished their job in just over three days.

As you can imagine, this was a huge relief for people who had been sweating without electricity.

“They were happy that we were there, and they would usually always ask us, like, hey, we don’t want to be rude, but how long do you think this is going to take you? ’ And most of the time, when we would give them an answer if we had an idea, they would be very surprised; they would say wow, you’re doing a lot,” Ben Lopez said.

Beryl left more than 2 million homes and businesses without power.

Nearly 20,000 people are still waiting for electricity to be restored.