CenterPoint Energy continues to actively monitor and focus its response efforts on nearly 400,000 natural gas customers that could be impacted across Louisiana and Mississippi.
The company is coordinating closely with emergency agency partners and has mobilized natural gas personnel, resources and support as part of its overall response efforts. The company has made 1,500 distribution frontline, mutual aid workers, available to other utilities in areas more likely to be impacted.
"We remain vigilant as Hurricane Francine draws closer, and our focus is on supporting all of our nearly 400,000 natural gas customers in Mississippi and Louisiana. We continue to urge our customers in the path of the storm to take the necessary safety and preparation steps to keep themselves and their loved ones safe," said Bo Murphy, CenterPoint's Vice President of Louisiana and Mississippi Natural Gas.
CenterPoint Energy focuses Hurricane Francine response to support natural gas customers in Louisiana and Mississippi
CenterPoint Energy Gulf Coast Service Territory
"As the storm tracked away from Greater Houston, we have transitioned our electric work in Greater Houston back to normal operations. We're staying in close contact with our utility peers in Louisiana and Mississippi and will make our frontline distribution workers available for mutual assistance based on their needs," said Darin Carroll, Senior Vice President of Electric Business.
Preparedness actions in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas
The steps the company is taking to prepare and respond to Hurricane Francine include:
- Readying Texas-based natural gas personnel to support colleagues in LA and MS: Secured Texas-based natural gas personnel to be deployed to support the company's nearly 480-member natural gas workforce in Louisiana and its nearly 200-member workforce in Mississippi and any necessary storm-related natural gas work in those states.
- Released all 1,500 frontline mutual aid workers: Made available all additional distribution frontline, mutual aid workers secured for the Greater Houston area to other more-impacted utilities to the east.
- Finishing storm-related vegetation management work in Greater Houston area: 1,300 vegetation management personnel will continue their work today, focusing on executing high-risk vegetation work with the intention to release the 700 mutual aid vegetation management personnel tomorrow based on the needs of other utilities in the path of the storm.
- Coordinating with government officials: Providing regular updates to federal, state, county and city officials to communicate company's pre-storm activities and readiness posture and provide critical updates.
- Conducting outreach to Critical Care Residential and Chronic Care customers: Conducted outreach to all 3,000+ identified Critical Care Residential and Chronic Care electric customers by email, phone or text.
- Sharing customer communications: Shared safety and preparedness actions with CenterPoint customers across social media and other platforms to help keep customers informed and prepared.
- Organizing additional call center staffing: Secured additional call center staff to handle a higher volume of calls during the storm and limit wait times.
- Preparing to conduct patrols and assess damage: CenterPoint crews will be deployed across its service territory to assess damage and, in the case of natural gas customers, shut-off natural gas in areas of severe flooding for safety.
Responding to potential impacts across service territory
The company is continuing to carefully monitor Hurricane Francine and taking immediate preparedness actions to support its natural gas customers in impacted states, including nearly 250,000 customers in Louisiana and more than 135,000 in Mississippi.
Safety tips for natural gas customers
CenterPoint is reminding customers to stay safe prior to, during and after Tropical Storm Francine by following these natural gas safety tips:
- Do not turn off your natural gas service at the meter in advance of the storm; doing so could allow water to enter the natural gas lines should flooding occur. If you wish to discontinue gas service, turn off the natural gas at each appliance.
- Always be alert for the smell of natural gas. If you smell natural gas, leave the area immediately on foot and tell others to leave, too.
- If you smell natural gas, do not turn the lights on or off, smoke, strike a match, use a cell phone or operate anything that might cause a spark, including a flashlight or a generator.
- Do not attempt to turn natural gas valves on or off. Once safely away from the area, call 1-888-876-5786 and CenterPoint will send a trained service technician.
- If your home is flooded, call a licensed plumber or natural gas appliance technician to inspect your appliances and gas piping to make sure they are in good operating condition before calling CenterPoint to reconnect service. This includes outdoor natural gas appliances including pool heaters, gas grills and gas lights.
- If you are planning any digging or clearing as part of your pre- or post-hurricane activities, please call 811, the nationwide Call Before You Dig number, to locate underground natural gas lines and other underground utility lines.
- Be aware of where your natural gas meter is located. As debris is put out for heavy trash pickup, make sure it is placed away from the meter. In many areas the meter may be located near the curb. If debris is near a natural gas meter, the mechanized equipment used by trash collectors could pull up the meter, damaging it and causing a potentially hazardous situation. If this happens, leave the area immediately and call CenterPoint at 1-888-876-5786.
