HOUSTON — CenterPoint’s power outage tracker map has been down for almost two months and customers are frustrated it wasn’t fixed before hurricane season started.
One viewer wrote to KHOU 11 News asking: "I’d like to know how they prepared ahead of the hurricane’s arrival and why their website and communication has been so weak."
CenterPoint’s answer: "Outage tracker is unavailable due to technical issues originating during the May 16 derecho event."
KHOU 11 News asked how soon that outage map would be fixed and CenterPoint said it would be repaired by the end of July along with a redesign.
You can also sign up for CenterPoint’s "Power Alert Service." It's supposed to provide restoration time estimates, but people have been telling us they’re not getting them.
So, we asked why. Turns out, a CenterPoint spokesman said no one is going to get a restoration timeline until the end of Wednesday. That’s also when they told us they would have 50% of outages restored.
When will the power come back on?
That’s the million-dollar question. KHOU 11 News has heard from many frustrated people who will be spending a second night in the dark.
"We keep hearing from CenterPoint workers we have seen that they can’t do anything because of too much debris and then they just leave. Is this true?" one viewer asked.
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A spokeswoman said there's an order to when your power gets restored and if you have trees blocking your lines, you’re probably going to be last.
The first to get power is critical infrastructure: hospitals, police and fire stations.
Second is neighborhoods with the most customers.
Finally, if there is debris blocking lines, CenterPoint said it will get there last.
A CenterPoint spokeswoman said the reason for that is if a tree branch is down on a line, it usually impacts just a street full of customers, which means it’s lower on the priority list.