Houston utility service hopes to get power back on for most by Wednesday night

HOUSTON (KIAH) — Houston's utility service, CenterPoint Energy, says it hopes to have half of all customers who lost power during the hurricane back online by Wednesday night.

But the energy company that serves most of the Houston area is facing a lot of questions about its preparedness for Tropical Storm Beryl, which left over 2.7 million people without power on Monday.

As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, 1.3 million customers remain without power, with over 850,000 customers having electricity restored, more than one-third of its customers, CenterPoint said.

However, there is no timeline for restoration for everyone else. A new online map provided by CenterPoint shows several areas that are still in assessment mode.

Meanwhile, Houstonians and those in surrounding areas continue to deal with the heat and humidity with no air conditioning. Temperatures reached the mid-90s with a heat index that climbed to 105 degrees. A heat advisory is still in effect for the area.

The dangerous heat and humidity with no power is making some question whether CenterPoint was prepared for the storm, and why the response is taking so long.

A CenterPoint executive defended the company at a city media briefing on Tuesday.

“From my perspective to have a storm pass at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, have those crews come in in the late evening, and have everything ready by 5 a.m. to go out and get out and start the workforce is rather impressive because we’re talking about thousands of crews,” Brad Tutunjian, vice president of regulatory policy with CenterPoint Energy, said.

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, they said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.