Temps inside IAH reach nearly 80 degrees after 'unexpected' AC issues, airport officials say
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Travelers coming in and out of Houston might feel the city's heat wave inside Bush Intercontinental after the airport announced it's experiencing some unexpected air conditioning issues on Monday.
At about 1 p.m., George Bush Intercontinental Airport officials tweeted that the AC issues were affecting temperatures in the building and that temporary chillers were installed to supplement the system as they work to resolve the issue.
Officials said the airport's "world-class customer service reps" are supplying free water to passengers.
"Houston Airports are also walking all five terminals to monitor the temperature inside the airport," Bush Airport officials said in a tweet. "Please know, Houston Airports is doing everything possible to restore optimal conditions for our passengers."
In an update, Jim Szczesniak, Chief Operating Officer for Houston Airport System, said complications began Sunday afternoon when one of the chillers tripped out. Szczesniak said they immediately ordered portable chillers.
He said the air coolers were working at the level they needed until another chiller began having issues at about 3:30 a.m. on Monday. After the second chiller experienced electrical issues, that's when temperatures began being affected inside the airport.
"Our goal here is 74 degrees, plus or minus two degrees. Right now, in large parts of the terminal, we're running around 76 to 77 degrees. Some of the older sections of the airport may be hotter than that," Szczesniak said. "Portable chillers are here and being hooked up and activated as we speak."
Bush Airport has six chillers, and with two down, the problem is capacity, according to Szczesniak. He said it's unusual to lose two large chillers within 24 hours.
He said technicians are troubleshooting the chillers to figure out what caused the electrical issues. The air cooling drawback has not appeared to be the cause of any flight delays.
"The plan for this, is that we're going to get the supplemental chilling in this evening and run the system on full blast so overnight we can bring it down and chill it as much as we can for tomorrow," Szczesniak said. "Hopefully tomorrow we'll be in our normal range."
He said they are investigating whether the weekend storms contributed to the electrical issues.
ABC13's weather team says Houston can expect heat advisories this week as high temperatures begin in the mid-upper 90s starting Monday and last through, at least, Father's Day weekend.
Keep up with weather updates and view your full forecast here.
Eyewitness News will keep you up to date on this matter. Watch ABC13 newscasts throughout the afternoon for live updates.
WATCH: Airport officials provide update after IAH experiences AC issues
