BEAUMONT, Texas – Harvey continues its destruction in Southeast Texas, causing historical flooding and wreaking havoc on the electrical system.

             At 1 p.m. just over 29,000 customers were without power – down from a peak of 41,000 customers. Restoration for the majority of the outages is expected to be Saturday evening, if customers can take power at their locations. However, the storm continues to cause problems in Southeast Texas, so it could take longer to restore power in some areas.

            “Normally, when a hurricane or tropical storm strikes and causes power outages, it moves on and we are able to steadily reduce the number of outages from the peak,” said Vernon Pierce, vice president of customer service for Entergy Texas. “But due to Harvey lingering over the same area for an extended period, it’s made restoration efforts a marathon. Each day we’ll restore outages and then the weather undoes our work.”

            Since Friday, Entergy Texas has restored almost 78,000 customers who experienced outages. However, the storms continue to cause new outages.

            More than 1,700 restoration workers have been deployed to help restore power. These include company employees, off-site workers from other utility companies and contract workers.

            Of those without power in Texas, about 5,800 customers are without power either because flooding prevents Entergy from accessing their location or their power was disconnected due to safety concerns associated with the high water in their areas. This number may rise as heavy rains continue.

            “In addition to not being able to get to some areas, we can’t use our bucket trucks until sustained winds are less than 30 mph,” Pierce said. “But we can still begin restoring service to customers by closing circuit breakers, rerouting power and other actions.”           

            Customers are urged to stay away from power lines, even if they think the lines are dead. Contact Entergy immediately to report the situation. For more emergency tips and the latest on outages and storm information, visit the Entergy Storm Center.