HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — A new CenterPoint map shows which neighborhoods should have power, but only provides an estimate of when to expect the lights back for some areas.
It’s day four without power for many CenterPoint customers across Houston. Spending several days in the dark has forced many customers to shell out hundreds of dollars to find food and a place to stay.
"It’s like 80 degrees in there, it’s melting, you just go in there and you feel the heat coming towards you," said Martin Tomas, who is without power at his family’s home in Spring Branch. "No one has come to tell us anything."
If they had been told, Tomas said, they would have made different plans. He’s the oldest of five kids. We met his mom sitting in a car to get air conditioning. She was holding her 2-month-old baby.
"We have just been driving around going to places with air conditioning because it’s not livable," Tomas said.
CenterPoint’s outage map went down in May during the derecho. It released a new one this week, but it’s been confusing for some people.
We tried to look on the map, whatever that is, but I couldn’t get anything figured out on that," Diane Goodell, another customer without power, said.
The new map shows which neighborhoods should have power, but only provides specific days to expect the lights back in some areas.
"There might have been some different decisions, if there was a timeline but I have to tell you, I think they have done a lousy job," Goodell said.
For Tomas and his family, knowing the timeline would have helped them make better decisions, especially because they’re caring for young kids.
"We could have contacted some family or try to pack up our things to move to a hotel or somewhere far with power," Tomas said.
CenterPoint promised specific restoration timelines by noon on Thursday, and we are starting to see dates for some customers showing up on the outage map online.
