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Power nearly restored
By T.L. HAMILTON
For some Montgomery County residents, patience is hard to muster when everyone around them has power and they still don’t.
While customers of Entergy Texas and Sam Houston Electric Cooperative are nearly all back to normal when it comes to electricity, powerless residents of South County who are CenterPoint customers find themselves sandwiched between energized areas.
While crews work nonstop to fix outages, 10 days after Hurricane Ike residents find themselves with an uneasy mix of respect for the hard work being done and frustration with the delays.
Nick Collins of the Village of Sterling Ridge in The Woodlands has seen 80 percent of his community energized since Friday, but his village is still in the dark. After several days spent visiting coffee shop after coffee shop to work on his laptop computer, Collins, who normally works from home, left for Austin on Monday.
CenterPoint recently changed the projected restoration for his zip code to “after Sept. 25.”
“Most residents appreciate the restoration efforts and understand the challenges involved,” he said. “However some of us struggle to understand why the last-minute change and why the CenterPoint area isn't on par with the rest of the community.”
CenterPoint officials did not return calls seeking comment. According to the company’s website, as of Tuesday afternoon, its total customers with power were 1.64 million, or 73 percent of total customers, while 616,000 customers, or 27 percent, were still without power.
Joel Deretchin, president of The Woodlands Association, wrote a letter Monday to residents in the association’s area, much of which is served by CenterPoint.
In addition to Sterling Ridge, parts of Creekside Park and Grogan’s Mill were also still without electricity Tuesday.
“Entergy is a smaller company than CenterPoint, with power grids north of here and has been able to restore a majority of its customers,” Deretchin’s letter stated.
“CenterPoint is a much larger company. In the 5,000-square mile service area centered around Houston, CenterPoint has about 50,000 miles of power lines – a great deal of infrastructure that was susceptible to the high winds and downed trees.”
However, CenterPoint stated in a Sept. 19 press release that its repairs to infrastructure were complete and it would begin sweeping individual neighborhoods for downed lines.
“Since we, like the rest of the Woodlands, have underground lines, why are we not ready to go?” Collins asked.
Deretchin said at least 100 residents have called him, the Community Associations of The Woodlands, State Sen. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, and State Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, about outages.
“I understand their frustration,” he said. “In some cases these people can see homes that have power right across Woodlands Parkway.”
Deretchin said he’d been on the phone with CenterPoint “constantly,” explaining to officials that a fire station in Sterling Ridge still has no power, and that there are more homes affected than CenterPoint’s website states.
“They have it listed as about 139 homes out of power, when really it’s more like 3,000 because the area has grown so fast,” he said.
The Fox Run subdivision and other parts of Spring also are served by CenterPoint and were without power as of Tuesday.
Powerless
Number of Montgomery County customers still without power:
Entergy Texas
Total customers: 129,595
Customers without power: 96
SHECO
Total customers: 9,417
Customers without power: 0
Information on CenterPoint customers was not available Tuesday.
While customers of Entergy Texas and Sam Houston Electric Cooperative are nearly all back to normal when it comes to electricity, powerless residents of South County who are CenterPoint customers find themselves sandwiched between energized areas.
While crews work nonstop to fix outages, 10 days after Hurricane Ike residents find themselves with an uneasy mix of respect for the hard work being done and frustration with the delays.
Nick Collins of the Village of Sterling Ridge in The Woodlands has seen 80 percent of his community energized since Friday, but his village is still in the dark. After several days spent visiting coffee shop after coffee shop to work on his laptop computer, Collins, who normally works from home, left for Austin on Monday.
CenterPoint recently changed the projected restoration for his zip code to “after Sept. 25.”
“Most residents appreciate the restoration efforts and understand the challenges involved,” he said. “However some of us struggle to understand why the last-minute change and why the CenterPoint area isn't on par with the rest of the community.”
CenterPoint officials did not return calls seeking comment. According to the company’s website, as of Tuesday afternoon, its total customers with power were 1.64 million, or 73 percent of total customers, while 616,000 customers, or 27 percent, were still without power.
Joel Deretchin, president of The Woodlands Association, wrote a letter Monday to residents in the association’s area, much of which is served by CenterPoint.
In addition to Sterling Ridge, parts of Creekside Park and Grogan’s Mill were also still without electricity Tuesday.
“Entergy is a smaller company than CenterPoint, with power grids north of here and has been able to restore a majority of its customers,” Deretchin’s letter stated.
“CenterPoint is a much larger company. In the 5,000-square mile service area centered around Houston, CenterPoint has about 50,000 miles of power lines – a great deal of infrastructure that was susceptible to the high winds and downed trees.”
However, CenterPoint stated in a Sept. 19 press release that its repairs to infrastructure were complete and it would begin sweeping individual neighborhoods for downed lines.
“Since we, like the rest of the Woodlands, have underground lines, why are we not ready to go?” Collins asked.
Deretchin said at least 100 residents have called him, the Community Associations of The Woodlands, State Sen. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, and State Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, about outages.
“I understand their frustration,” he said. “In some cases these people can see homes that have power right across Woodlands Parkway.”
Deretchin said he’d been on the phone with CenterPoint “constantly,” explaining to officials that a fire station in Sterling Ridge still has no power, and that there are more homes affected than CenterPoint’s website states.
“They have it listed as about 139 homes out of power, when really it’s more like 3,000 because the area has grown so fast,” he said.
The Fox Run subdivision and other parts of Spring also are served by CenterPoint and were without power as of Tuesday.
Powerless
Number of Montgomery County customers still without power:
Entergy Texas
Total customers: 129,595
Customers without power: 96
SHECO
Total customers: 9,417
Customers without power: 0
Information on CenterPoint customers was not available Tuesday.
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