CenterPoint is preparing staging sites,
mobilizing crews and equipment, communicating safety and
preparedness tips to its customers, and securing additional
frontline resources from mutual assistance partners.
- CenterPoint Energy has activated the company's Emergency
Operations Center and is executing its plan to address Tropical
Storm Francine.
- CenterPoint has 600 vegetation workers conducting pre-storm
vegetation management, with another 700 workers arriving
today.
- CenterPoint has 1,850 frontline workers pre-staged and has
identified an additional 1,625 frontline workers.
HOUSTON, Sept. 9,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to developing
weather conditions, CenterPoint Energy is taking a series of
actions to monitor, prepare, and respond to Tropical Strom Francine
and its potential landfall in the Greater
Houston area or broader Gulf Coast. Across its service area,
CenterPoint is preparing staging sites, mobilizing crews and
equipment, communicating safety and preparedness tips to its
customers, and securing additional frontline resources from mutual
assistance partners. The company remains in contact with federal,
state, county and city leaders about CenterPoint's preparation
activities and readiness posture.
"We are monitoring, planning, and preparing to respond to
Tropical Storm Francine's impact on our communities. We are taking
the necessary steps to prepare, even as we communicate with our
customers and coordinate closely with our local and statewide
emergency partners. Our focus is very clear: to get ready to
respond and restore power as safely and as quickly as possible,"
said Darin Carroll, Senior Vice
President of Operations for CenterPoint.
As of Monday afternoon, CenterPoint has undertaken the following
preparation actions:
- Activated Emergency Operations Center (EOC):
CenterPoint's EOC Activated at 8PM CT Sunday, September 8.
- Mobilizing 1,300+ Vegetation Management Workers:
Deployed 600+ local personnel to clear hazardous vegetation from
power lines ahead of storm landfall and secured an additional 700
mutual assistance vegetation management workers.
- Activating frontline distribution workers: Readied 1,850
local frontline workers and identified 1,625 mutual assistance
workers. CenterPoint has also identified more than 5,000 additional
mutual aid frontline workers, if needed for response.
- Preparing staging sites: Preparing four crew staging
sites to help ensure a rapid response once conditions have cleared.
CenterPoint is securing additional hotel rooms for mutual
assistance workers.
- Informing government officials: Conducted an update call
with federal, state, county and city officials to communicate
company's pre-storm activities and readiness posture and provide
critical updates.
- Conducting operational update for media and public:
Conducting a press briefing at 5 PM
CT to provide important updates related to company's
pre-storm activities, readiness posture and latest meteorological
updates.
- Conducting outreach to Critical Care Residential and Chronic
Care customers: Conducted outreach to all 3,000 identified
Critical Care Residential and Chronic Care customers by email,
phone or text.
- Organizing additional call center staffing: Secured
additional call center staff to handle higher volume of calls
during storm and limit wait times.
- Coordinating temporary generation: Coordinating closely
with local government and community stakeholder partners to
identify locations for temporary generation deployment.
- Sharing customer communications: Shared safety and
preparedness actions with CenterPoint customers across social media
and other platforms to help residents of the Greater Houston area formulate a plan.
Important Information for Customers
CenterPoint
customers are encouraged to enroll in the company's Power Alert
Service® to receive outage details, estimated restoration times and
customer-specific restoration updates via phone call, text or
email. Customers can also stay up-to-date on outages with
CenterPoint's new and improved, cloud-based Outage Tracker, which
allows customers to see outages by county, city and zip code. The
new tracker is capable of handling increased traffic during storms
and is ADA- and mobile-friendly.
CenterPoint is encouraging its customers in the Greater Houston area to make preparations and
have a plan to stay safe during Tropical Storm Francine. Customers
can get storm-related electric, natural gas and flooding safety
tips at CenterPointEnergy.com/StormCenter. Additional preparations
best practices are available at Ready.gov.
About CenterPoint Energy, Inc.
As the only
investor-owned electric and gas utility based in Texas, CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CNP) is
an energy delivery company with electric transmission and
distribution, power generation and natural gas distribution
operations that serve more than 7 million metered customers in
Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas. With approximately 9,000 employees,
CenterPoint Energy and its predecessor companies have been in
business for more than 150 years. For more information, visit
CenterPointEnergy.com.
For more information, contact:
Communications
Media.Relations@CenterPointEnergy.com
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SOURCE CenterPoint Energy