Emergency Operations Center activated and remains focused on coordinating restoration and emergency response efforts to restore power safely and quickly to all impacted customers
HOUSTON – May 23, 2026 – As severe thunderstorms moved through the Greater Houston area this morning and afternoon, CenterPoint Energy crews quickly took action to restore power to 155,000 customers as of 5 p.m. today. At the peak of today’s storm activity between 6 and 7 a.m., approximately 45,000 customers were without service. Approximately 94% of CenterPoint Energy’s 2.9 million customers experienced no impacts to their electric service due to the severe weather, with approximately 10,000 customers without power as of 5 p.m. — less than 0.5% of CenterPoint’s customers.
“CenterPoint crews immediately took action across the Greater Houston area this morning and began restoring customers immediately as storms moved throughout our region and will continue working around the clock restoring power to all customers experiencing storm-related outages. We are ready to respond throughout the weekend to additional rounds of weather anticipated through Monday, and our team will remain focused on restoring power safely and quickly as possible,” said Nathan Brownell, CenterPoint’s Vice President of Resilience and Capital Delivery and Incident Commander.
Storm-Related Response & Restoration Efforts Continue
CenterPoint crews remain ready to respond across its 12-county service area to a second round of afternoon thunderstorms and will continue to actively restore customers experiencing outages, with additional severe weather expected this evening and into the Memorial Day holiday. CenterPoint’s network of 150 weather stations have recorded isolated strong wind gusts of up to 50 mph in southwestern portions of the service territory, along with rainfall totals up to 1 inch, primarily south of I-10.
CenterPoint’s Emergency Operations Center will remain activated as crews continue supporting restoration efforts and preparing for additional weather throughout the Memorial Day holiday weekend and into next week.
Responding to severe weather: Key Actions
As part of its storm response efforts, CenterPoint is taking the following actions for its customers:
- Activated Emergency Operations Center: CenterPoint continues to monitor the evolving weather situation and coordinate storm response efforts through its Emergency Operations Center.
- Deployed enhanced workforce and resources: Frontlineworkers and contractors are prepared to support potential restoration efforts both day and night throughout the weekend.
- Monitoring severe weather 24/7:The Meteorology team continues to track weather forecast developments, and CenterPoint is updating its preparedness and response efforts as conditions evolve.
- Coordinating with local officials:CenterPoint is coordinating with local officials and emergency management partners on continued preparedness and response efforts.
- Communicating proactively with customers:Providing safety and preparedness information directly with customers via email, phone and text, across social media platforms and other channels.
- Communicating Proactively with Customers: Providing safety and preparedness information directly with customers via email, phone and text, across social media platforms and other channels. Since 3 a.m. Saturday more than 186,000 Power Alert Service® messages have been shared directly with customers
Emergency Communications: Sign Up for Power Alert Service®
To help prepare for the potential impact of the severe weather, CenterPoint is encouraging its customers to enroll in Power Alert Service® to receive outage details, estimated restoration times and customer-specific restoration updates via phone call, text or email. As part of CenterPoint’s overall emergency communications efforts, customers can stay up to date on local outages with CenterPoint’s cloud-based Outage Tracker, available in English and Spanish, which allows customers to see outages and restoration times by county, city and zip code.
Emergency Preparations: What Customers Can Do to Stay Safe
CenterPoint urges the public to put their safety first and prepare in advance for extreme weather by having a safety plan ready, especially for those who rely on electricity for life-sustaining equipment or medical needs. Customers can find safety tips to help them prepare at CenterPointEnergy.com/ActionCenter.
For the latest updates, follow CenterPoint on social media and visit CenterPointEnergy.com/ActionCenter.
