CenterPoint Energy is staging crews ahead of a Gulf storm system expected to reach the League City area by Tuesday, Sept. 1.
The utility said in an Aug. 30 release that it is inspecting equipment and deploying workers to clear hazardous vegetation from power lines, KHOU reported. CenterPoint did not say where its staging crews are positioned.
The disturbance, designated Invest 97L by the National Hurricane Center, sat about 125 miles south of southeastern Louisiana on Sunday, Aug. 30. It had a 50% chance of developing into a tropical system within 48 hours, according to Fox 26 Houston and the Sun Sentinel. If it becomes a named storm, it would be called Tropical Storm Edouard.
Forecasters expect the system to arrive along the upper Texas or southwestern Louisiana coast Tuesday night or Wednesday, Sept. 2. Texas Storm Chasers projected 2 to 6 inches of rain across the Houston metro and Galveston-to-Beaumont corridor from Monday, Aug. 31, through Wednesday, Sept. 2. Strong gusty winds and possible spin-up tornadoes are also in the forecast.
Post-Beryl upgrades
CenterPoint's online community progress tracker showed the utility had completed several upgrades since Hurricane Beryl knocked out power for more than 2.2 million customers in July 2024:
- Nearly 76,000 storm-resilient poles and equipment installed
- More than 13,000 miles of tree trimming and line clearing
- 852 miles of power lines placed underground
Those numbers have grown since July. Nathan Brownell, CenterPoint's vice president of resilience and capital delivery, told Houston Public Media on July 22 that crews had installed more than 72,000 hurricane-resistant poles rated for 132-mph winds. At that point, the utility had trimmed more than 12,000 miles of vegetation and buried almost 700 miles of cable.
At the July news conference, held during preparations for Tropical Storm Bertha, Brownell said the preparation would "continue throughout the event and make sure that every single customer that is impacted gets their power back on as quickly and safely as possible."
No source confirms which League City neighborhoods have received upgraded poles, underground lines or vegetation trimming. The data is system-wide only.
How to prepare
Residents can track outages in real time on CenterPoint's outage tracker. To report an outage, file an online report or call 713-207-2222. The utility's free Power Alert Service sends text, email or phone notifications about outages and estimated restoration times.
The storm's track remained uncertain as of Aug. 30. The National Hurricane Center is expected to issue updated advisories through early September.
