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Over 3 Million Remain Powerless After Hurricane Ike
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by Jarrett Martineau | September 16, 2008 at 11:20 am
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The devastation wrought by Hurricane Ike is being felt across the Midwest, as more than 3 million homes and businesses are without power. Depending on their location, reconnection times could range from days to weeks, as officials and electrical companies struggle to return service.
Have you been affected by Hurricane Ike? Are you still waiting for power to be returned? Share your thoughts, photos, and video here.
More than 3 million homes and businesses remained without power in eight states on Tuesday after Hurricane Ike, federal officials said.Those in the Midwest are expected to be reconnected within days, while many Texans will have to wait weeks, according to utility companies commanding armies of employees working around the clock.
The biggest utility in Houston, the metropolitan area with the most outages, made significant progress by Tuesday. CenterPoint Energy said it had restored 667,000 customers with electric service, leaving about 1.5 million homes and businesses without refrigeration, air-conditioning, and roads without traffic signals.
More than 2.1 million CenterPoint customers, or 99 percent, lost power after the storm made landfall early on Saturday. CenterPoint has warned that it may take weeks to reconnect all customers.
About 3.9 million customers in eight states were without power Tuesday morning because of Ike, the U.S. Department of Energy reported. That figure was issued before CenterPoint and Midwestern utilities updated reconnection figures.
More than half of the DOE total was for outages in Texas -- more than 2 million -- and Ohio was next, with about 1 million outages, the DOE said.
Ike caused the largest single power outage in Texas, according to state regulators.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (5)
at 11:41 on September 16th, 2008
We have regulators in Texas? Who'da thunk it? Seriously, makes me wonder why we aren't digging trenches for power lines to keep them out of danger. Maybe it's a matter of money; maybe it's not feasible.
at 12:58 on September 16th, 2008
Richmond, Indiana. A long way from the coast of Texas where I grew up, but not far enough to avoid Ike. We had almost no rain, but 40 MPH winds and 75 MPH gusts took out trees, power, etc. The area had a few deaths and injuries, lots of property damage, and general inconvenience. We had no power for a while, and this picture shows our picnic diner.
Thomas Kemp has contributed a photo to this story.
at 14:20 on September 16th, 2008
Jarrett Martineau, I like this story. It's good stuff.
What would you do without power for weeks!?
at 16:22 on September 16th, 2008
Jarrett Martineau, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 17:58 on September 16th, 2008
we lost power for 24 hours starting at 8pm friday before the storm hit. this is my picture of the candles we used to see during the storm. riding out the storm was scary, the winds were strong for hours and the sky lit up every few minutes, most likely due to transformers exploding. the damage to our area was minimal compared to the hardest hit, just a few down trees, shingles, and fences. seeing just how bad the hardest hit areas were was upsetting but it's nice to see how supportive people are when others are in need.
caroliebee has contributed a photo to this story.