Overview
- Severe thunderstorms on Saturday produced heavy lightning and knocked out power to large parts of the Houston area.
- Outage totals vary by report with KPRC citing nearly 42,000 customers without power, the Chronicle reporting more than 18,000 affected, and CenterPoint listing 890 outages at 8:30 a.m.
- A flood watch for coastal Southeast Texas, including Harris County, runs through Monday evening and raises the chance of flash flooding that can cause new outages and hamper repairs.
- CenterPoint and Entergy say they pre-staged crews and coordinated with local officials to respond quickly after the storms, and crews had restored about 133,000 customers earlier this week after heavy rain.
- The outages and continued storms threaten holiday travel, disrupt homes and businesses, and could slow emergency response and power-restoration work over the long holiday weekend.