CenterPoint targeting Sunday for restoring 750,000 of 1.2 million without power

CenterPoint officials said they expect 400,000 of their customers without power will see it return by the end of Friday, while another 350,000 will be back online by the end of Sunday and 400,000 more could have to wait until next week.

The company on Wednesday evening released its first specific estimates for the return of power across its coverage area in Greater Houston, which includes nearly all of Harris and Fort Bend counties.

About 2.2 million CenterPoint customers lost power after Hurricane Beryl wiped out electricity throughout the region Monday morning. CenterPoint Energy officials said about 1 million customers have regained power as of Wednesday evening, hitting a target they set earlier this week.

The company pledged to provide a more detailed restoration timeline Thursday.

A lack of information about outages and expected restoration timelines has frustrated Houstonians languishing without power in sweltering heat.

In a Wednesday statement, CenterPoint said Beryl caused extensive damage to the company’s electric poles and wires.

“Center parts of CenterPoint’s service area experienced major damage (during Beryl), especially along the coast where its system will need to be rebuilt,” the company said. “Uprooted and downed trees on poles and wires have also caused significant damage in many areas across Greater Houston.”

CenterPoint is currently deploying restoration personnel from 18 staging sites across its service area, the most ever arranged by the company in a storm response.