Hurricane IKE Knocks Out Power for Much of Houston and Region

Most of Houston and region (estimated 5 million people) are left without power from hurricane IKE. Luckily, we live in the Galleria area and we have not lost power. There are loads of small limbs and debris everywhere. We witnessed some flooding on Saturday but it seems to be getting worse in some areas due to rain and rising bayous.

CenterPoint Energy Houston Power Outage Map

Our water is not working. Hopefully, that will return as the electric companies bring the power grids back online.

The downtown area of Houston was really hard hit. Many of the office buildings sustained massive damage.

Here is what the Chron is saying about the massive power outages in the region.

Roughly 5 million people without power

Just after noon on Saturday it appears some 5 million people across the region are without electricity, with more than 99 percent of elecitricity service knocked out by Hurricane Ike.

Local power companies are already warning residents that getting the juice flowing again will be a painstaking process that could take weeks.

More than 99 percent of power customers of both CenterPoint Energy and Entergy Texas are without power today. The Texas-New Mexico Power Co., which services communities south of town, is 100 percent offline.

“We sustained a massive hit,” said CenterPoint Energy spokesman Floyd LeBlanc.

CenterPoints damage assessors and service trucks have already begun to sortie out to neighborhoods across its service area now that winds have largely subsided.

So far, the company has not been able to put helicopters in the air to get an aerial view of damage.

“The Federal Aviation Administration said immediately after the hurricane only medical transport would be allowed in the area but we are pressing them. We would like to get up and take advantage of this daylight,” LeBlanc said.

Despite the lack of aerial videos and photographs, CenterPoint does know that roughly 30 percent of its transmission system in the metro area sustained serious damage.

The transmission system more than mere poles and wires. It is the network of tall metal towers in grassy rights-of-way that bundle electricity and deliver it to neighborhood substations.

According to LeBlanc, the metropolitan area is bisected by a diagonal line stretching from Fort Bend County in the Southwest up to Humble in the Northeast. The transmission trouble is primarily south and east of that line, running from the Astrodome area to the Ship Channel and encompassing neighborhoods from Bellaire to Baytown.
– LYNN COOK