Prepare to be without power the rest of the day, CenterPoint says

HOUSTON, Texas -- The Electric Reliability Council of Texas-which manages the flow of electricity to about 90% of the state's electricity consumers-initiated rotating power outages across the state at 1:25 a.m., according to a Feb. 15 release from ERCOT. As such, CenterPoint Energy, which services large portions of the Greater Houston area, stated on Twitter early Feb. 15 that customers should conserve electricity and expect temporary power outages.

CenterPoint initially stated the temporary outages could last 15 minutes to more than an hour, but soon after updated its statement that customers currently experiencing outages should expect to be without power for at least the remainder of Monday.



Some customers report being without power for more than 20 hours as of Monday night, and there doesn't seem to be any relief in sight.



CenterPoint Energy's online outage tracker map was restored late Monday evening. At about 9:45 p.m., it showed more than 1.4M customers without lights.
CenterPoint stated customers still with power are asked to conserve power as much as possible to assist with stabilizing the state's power grid.



"We know this is a very difficult situation for our customers, but we are doing our part, based on [ERCOT's] directive, to reach a power supply and demand balance across the state," CenterPoint Energy stated on Twitter. CenterPoint's outage tracker was unavailable as of publication, but according to PowerOutage.US, a website that tracks the outages of electricity providers, more than 96,000 CenterPoint customers were without power as of 9:29 a.m. Feb. 15.

As the outages continue, officials are reminding people not to call 911 or the non-emergency number to report power outages.


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This story comes from our partners at Community Impact Newspaper.