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Despite some modest gains in the state’s electricity output as generators come back online, elected officials warned Wednesday that both the disastrous power outages and the lack of safe (or any) water many Houston residents are still facing could easily last until this weekend. “Residents still need to be prepared to go a couple more days without power,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in a Wednesday update on the still unfolding disaster. That’s because even though ERCOT (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas) has been able to get enough power generation back up and runnin...

In a Thursday update on Houston’s winter storm response, Mayor Sylvester Turner celebrated that most city residents finally have electricity again, but warned that locals may still have to boil their water for safe consumption through this weekend or into next week. He also warned about the one last hard freeze set for Thursday night and cautioned folks to take precautions to prevent busted pipes that could damage homes and further set-back the city water pressure issues. Most of the city of Houston has been under a boil water notice since Wednesday morning, when the city water system’s p...

GREAT NEWS: Most Harris County homes have power right now. 46k in our region are still down. There's still a possibility of power losses, but that has been reduced. Centerpoint tells me that everyone cut because of #ERCOT orders is back on. Crews are working on remaining homes.— Lina Hidalgo (@LinaHidalgoTX) February 18, 2021 CenterPoint has been quick to caution that even though power was coming back online, Texas still isn’t close to 100 percent power generation, so there’s still the chance of shorter rolling blackouts from 15 minutes to an hour across the Houston area for the next se...

In a stark warning, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and CenterPoint Energy cautioned area residents Tuesday night that the catastrophic power outages affecting more than a million locals could be with us even longer than the hellaciously cold weather dumped on Texas by an unprecedented winter storm. “Let me give it to you straight, based on the visibility I have: Whether you have power or not right now, there is a possibility of power outages even beyond the length of this weather,” Hidalgo said. The reason these outages might last even longer than the cold weather is because even once T...

City Public Works director Carol Haddock explained that state rules from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality mean that the boil notice can’t be immediately lifted even once the system regains enough pressure to ensure the water coming to consumers can be sufficiently treated and sanitized. She said once the water pressure gets back to an acceptable level, the city has to take water samples and send them into the state. “We have to then let them sit in the laboratory for 24 hours to make sure that no bacteria grows in them,” Haddock explained, “and once we get the all clear ...