CenterPoint Energy closely monitoring Tropical Depression 2 and taking actions to prepare ahead of Potential Impacts across Greater Houston

To support its customers and communities, CenterPoint Energy is taking precautionary safety actions including closely monitoring weather conditions and deploying its hurricane/summer storm readiness plans to prepare for Tropical Depression 2. As of 12:00 PM today, the National Hurricane Center upgraded the weather disturbance to a Tropical Depression and expects further upgrades to potentially a Tropical Storm by Monday or Tuesday, with impacts to the Greater Houston area as soon as Thursday. With the storm approaching, CenterPoint urges all customers to register to receive important service-related updates via text, email, or phone call through Power Alert Service®.

“Our teams have been monitoring this weather system for several days and we are taking actions to support our customers ahead of the forecasted Tropical Depression impacts, including continuing to monitor conditions, deploying our readiness plans to be prepared to restore power safely and as quickly as possible. We encourage all customers across the Greater Houston area to prepare and stay safe in anticipation of quickly changing weather conditions,” said Nathan Brownell, CenterPoint’s Vice President, Resilience and Capital Delivery and Incident Commander.

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CenterPoint’s Key Preparedness Actions 

In preparation for the forecasted Tropical system, CenterPoint has taken a series of safety and readiness actions, including: 

• Actively monitoring weather: Closely monitoring National Hurricane Center forecasts and evolving weather conditions that could impact Texas.
• Deploying hurricane/summer storm readiness plans: reviewing personnel and equipment needs based on potential storm impacts.
• Inspecting and testing critical electrical equipment: Inspecting power lines and electric substations across the Greater Houston area and conducting repairs as needed.
• Trimming and removing high-risk vegetation: Deploying crews and contract personnel to inspect and clear hazardous vegetation from power lines to prepare for potential high winds and precipitation.
• Coordinating with government officials: Providing regular updates to federal, state, county and city officials regarding preparedness activities.
• Communicating proactively with customers: Providing safety and preparedness information directly with customers via email, phone, and text, across social media platforms and other channels to keep customers informed and prepared.

If the risk of landfall increases, CenterPoint will activate its Emergency Operations Center and stage additional frontline workers and mutual aid personnel in strategic locations to be ready to restore service to impacted customers safely and as quickly as possible.

Emergency Communications: Sign Up for Power Alert Service®

To help prepare for the impact of Tropical Depression 2, CenterPoint is encouraging its customers to enroll in Power Alert Service® to receive outage details, estimated restoration times and customer-specific restoration updates via phone call, text, or email. As part of CenterPoint’s overall emergency communications efforts, customers can stay up to date on local outages with CenterPoint’s cloud-based Outage Tracker, available in English and Spanish, which allows customers to see outages and restoration times by county, city, and ZIP code. 

Emergency Preparations: What Customers Can Do to Stay Safe

CenterPoint urges the public to put their safety first and prepare in advance for extreme weather, including hurricanes, by having a safety plan ready, especially for those who rely on electricity for life-sustaining equipment or medical needs. Customers can find safety tips to help them prepare at CenterPointEnergy.com/ActionCenter or at Ready.gov.

For the latest updates, follow CenterPoint on social media and visit CenterPointEnergy.com/ActionCenter.

Source; CenterPoint Energy

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