Houston Remains in Recovery Mode After Storm

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Houston officials warned Friday the cleanup following the storm that hit the city last week would be slow and some residents could be without electricity for days, if not longer.

Winds up to 100 miles an hour ripped through the Greater Houston area and surrounding communities Thursday night, leaving at least four dead and hundreds of thousands without power.

"We are going to have to talk about this disaster in weeks, not days," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said at a news conference. Houston Mayor John Whitmire added: "It was fierce, it was intense, it was quick and most Houstonians didn't have time to get themselves out of harm's way."

There is no indication industrial plants or refineries in the area suffered damage, and there are no reported shutdowns or offline events, but Industrial Info will continue to monitor the situation and update accordingly.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) (Houston, Texas), meanwhile, said customers in the Houston area should "be prepared for extended weather-related power outages." As of Friday, there were 726,548 CenterPoint customers in the Houston area without power, down from a high of nearly 880,000 customers on Thursday, according to the utility. CenterPoint's services area covers about 5,000 square miles across the Houston area, serving approximately 2.8 million metered customers across its system.

In a statement to local news media, the utility said: "There has been damage to several of our facilities in the Houston-area service territory. As the line of severe weather has made its way through our region, it is now safe for our crews to begin assessing damage but can confirm we've experienced significant damage to our system."

"While addressing key facilities, we follow our priority restoration process by making repairs to electrical facilities that will return power to the largest number of customers first. We then continue the restoration process by prioritizing repairs to benefit the greatest number of customers, until power is returned to everyone.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).