HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — As temperatures plummet across southeast Texas, CenterPoint Energy says its workforce responding to outages and emergencies has increased to 3,300.
“A hundred percent of those are on our system. They’ve been stationed all across our systems. We have 13 operating centers and two staging sites,” Nathan Brownell, VP of resilience and capital delivery, said.
To help with power restoration, they have 1,500 trucks ready, and crews have been brought in from nine different states.
The utility company says, based on data from previous storms, that it projects about 100,000 to 200,000 outages over the next couple of days.
“Knowing that we have 3,300 workers assembled here. We’ve brought in these extra crews, we fully anticipate restoring customers across our system within 12 hours or less.” Richard Leger, Senior VP of CenterPoint natural gas businesses, said.
As people head inside to stay warm, the city has also opened a dozen warming shelters.
The Red Cross is also helping the community by opening several shelters across the city by providing food and a warm place to sleep.
A spokesperson said that at the Bayland Community Center, the organization has already served about 50 people.
“I think a lot of people are worried about what happened in 2021 and so you know, they are like, let me go ahead and get a spot on the cot and just get out of the cold,” David Leary, Client Care Manager for Red Cross, said.
For many, these shelters are more than just a place to get a good night’s rest.
“Other people are afraid their power is going to get cut off. People are power dependent. They have medical issues,” Leary said.
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