Power outages reported in wake of Hurricane Harvey
Hundreds of thousands of households are without power on Texas's Gulf Coast, the Electric Reliability Council said around 8 a.m. Saturday.
Nearly 300,000 customers are without power after Hurricane Harvey hit the coast near the town of Rockport just before 10 p.m. Friday night. The power loss is due to more than 150 damaged transmission circuits, ERCOT said. ERCOT oversees 90 percent of the state's electricity grid.
The hardest loss is in Corpus Christi, where more than 160,000 customers have lost power, and in the surrounding towns of Port Aransas, Victoria and Port Lavaca, according to AEP Texas, the transmission company that services the area.
Meanwhile, CenterPoint Energy is reporting more than 61,000 customers in the Houston area are without power as the effects of Hurricane Harvey reached the city early Saturday morning.
But more than 97 percent of Houston's grid still has power, according to CenterPoint's outage map. The most severe outages -- in clusters of less than 150 homes -- are in the southwest and southeast areas of Houston.
Hundreds of households in and around Galveston also appeared to be without power, according to updates on CenterPoint's outage map.
CenterPoint's Houston crews, joined by crews from Minnesota, are working to restore power. However, local flooding and tornadoes in Houston is expected to slow down repairs to damaged lines and the restoration of power, CenterPoint has said.
Remember to stay away from downed power lines. If your home has flooded above the level of its electrical sockets, call a licensed electrician before attempting to restore power.
Port Aransas has 45,000 customers without power; Port Lavaca 11,000; Victoria 6,900 and Beeville 3,300, according to updates from AEP Texas.
Nueces County Judge Lloyd Neal told the that it would take three days to a week for crews to restore power.