600,000 Houstonians Without Power in Downtown 5 Days After Beryl

More than a quarter of the 2.26 million CenterPoint Energy customers whose lights were knocked out Monday after Hurricane Beryl were still without power Saturday, five days after the storm significantly reduced the Houston area’s electricity supply.

CenterPoint’s outage tracking system reported that 602,405 customers were without power as of 2:09 p.m. The company’s restoration map showed estimated repair times through Monday for some areas northeast of the Inner Loop, but large swaths of the city were still marked as having a “restoration date pending review.”

EXCLUSIVE: CenterPoint CEO Defends Power Delays, Promises Better Communication After Hurricane Beryl

In its latest statement, the company said thunderstorms that passed through the area Friday afternoon forced crews to halt work, though it said CenterPoint’s restoration rate was “ahead of its previous expectations.”

“CenterPoint Energy crews are now on track to restore power to approximately 85% of impacted customers by the end of this weekend,” CenterPoint said in a statement. But given the magnitude of the power loss, that goal would still leave more than 300,000 Houston-area customers in the dark a week after the storm.

The Houston area is struggling to survive without power after a week of deadly temperatures reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit and the threat of more storms this weekend. CenterPoint’s prolonged equipment outages have been the target of scathing memes and graffiti in Houston, as well as desperate pleas from local officials to get the city back online.

“I am furious with CenterPoint,” said U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, while U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee sent a letter Friday to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the federal government to investigate the company’s “gross and consistent misconduct.”

“This team is doing everything they can to put pressure on CenterPoint,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said of the overdue repairs. “They have to do better. They have to communicate better,” he said, vowing to hold the company accountable after an assessment of the actions taken. Gov. Greg Abbott has also called for an investigation into why the area has experienced prolonged power outages “on multiple occasions.”

REACTIONS: We asked officials in Houston and Texas about the delays caused by the CenterPoint power outage. Here’s what they had to say.

The company itself is regulated by the Texas Public Utilities Commission, which called on CenterPoint at a public meeting Thursday to “talk to its customers” to address the region’s crisis of confidence in its services.

While CenterPoint covers most of the Greater Houston area, it’s not the only company to experience extended power losses in the region after Hurricane Beryl. Entergy, which serves the second-most homes, still had 43,129 customers without power as of 1:28 p.m. Saturday.

For some Houston-area households left without power by the storm, a few days were unbearable, let alone a week.

Before power was restored Wednesday night, residents of Lancaster Senior Village in southeast Houston had to deal with sweltering heat and unusable elevators, leaving some seniors dangerously stranded on the facility’s upper floors. Others slept in their cars to take advantage of air conditioning at night, fearing health risks from high temperatures.

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“No one was coming to see us to see if we needed water or food, so the best thing to do was to come together,” said Emma Sutton, 56, who went door to door checking on her neighbours, handing out food, ice and water.

As power outages in other areas dragged on for days, city residents said they increasingly felt they could rely only on themselves and their neighbors for help.