With Tropical Storm Beryl on the verge of becoming a hurricane and threatening the Gulf Coast with heavy rain and strong winds, residents in the Houston area are facing a challenge as the popular CenterPoint outage map remains offline. This outage has left many in the dark about the duration of the power outage.
During the storms in May that caused significant damage in northwest Houston, including fallen trees and a major transmission line, CenterPoint’s Outage Tracker map crashed due to high customer demand and widespread outages. The company acknowledged the inconvenience to its customers and promised to provide general outage information every 15 minutes until the new system is in place.
CenterPoint plans to introduce a redesigned cloud-based platform by the end of the month to replace the outage map. This new system is expected to offer the same level of outage information and functionality as the previous Outage Tracker. In the meantime, the company is urging people to sign up for its Power Alert Service to receive notifications about outages at their specific address.
During the May storms, the outage map, which was a valuable tool for residents to track power losses in their neighborhoods, never returned. Instead, CenterPoint only provided data on the number of affected customers, total outages, and restoration efforts for the day. This absence of the map led to frustration among residents, especially as thousands remained without power.
On social media, there has been ongoing criticism of the company for potentially prioritizing rate increases over investing in emergency operations. Some residents have expressed disappointment, emphasizing the importance of knowing when power will be restored.
One resident, Paul Fernandez, from Timbergrove, highlighted the frustration of the community over the lack of a map during the May storms. He encouraged neighbors to contact the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which oversees electricity providers like CenterPoint, to address concerns about the power outage situation.
As Tropical Storm Beryl approaches and the Houston area braces for potential impacts, the absence of the outage map adds another layer of uncertainty for residents. With CenterPoint’s commitment to implementing a new system soon, residents are hopeful for a more efficient and informative tool to track power outages in the future.
