Power outage history
Houston County Texas
23hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
33rd most of 240 in Texas 3.5× the national median
Every day since 2015
Eleven years, one night at a time
Each cell is a day. The brighter it is, the larger the share of Houston's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.
Year by year
Hours in the dark, per customer
2021 was the worst well-recorded year, at 2.4 days for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.
Houston, hours without power per customer
The record
The biggest outages since 2015
Ranked by customer-hours lost: customers out multiplied by how long they stayed out. Times are local.
| Began | Storm | Peak out | Share | Lasted | 90% restored | Customer-hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 15, 2021 | Ice storm | 6,087 | 52% | 6.6 d | 14 h | 335k |
| Mar 21, 2022 | Tornadoes | 9,548 | 82% | 2.9 d | 2.3 d | 284k |
| Jan 10, 2021 | Winter storm | 9,214 | 79% | 3.1 d | 47 h | 237k |
| May 28, 2024 | Thunderstorms | 5,351 | 46% | 4.7 d | 11 h | 112k |
| Apr 26, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 5,953 | 51% | 34 h | 21 h | 79k |
| Oct 30, 2020 | No storm report | 6,861 | 59% | 12 h | 8.2 h | 55k |
| Jul 8, 2024 | Hurricane Beryl | 3,678 | 31% | 2.3 d | 17 h | 53k |
| May 26, 2025 | No storm report | 3,465 | 30% | 33 h | 5.8 h | 40k |
| May 22, 2024 | Thunderstorms | 5,732 | 49% | 22 h | 8.0 h | 33k |
| Mar 2, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 3,947 | 34% | 21 h | 7.2 h | 23k |
| Sep 22, 2020 | Tropical Storm Beta | 5,081 | 43% | 8.0 h | 1.2 h | 22k |
| Apr 22, 2020 | Thunderstorms | 754 | 6% | 2.2 d | 6.5 h | 21k |
| Nov 25, 2020 | No storm report | 4,037 | 35% | 9.2 h | 8.0 h | 19k |
| Dec 28, 2024 | Thunderstorms | 4,224 | 36% | 20 h | 4.5 h | 17k |
| Jan 15, 2018 | No storm report | 5,132 | 44% | 5.2 h | 4.2 h | 15k |
| Jun 10, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 3,292 | 28% | 22 h | 6.0 h | 15k |
| Apr 13, 2019 | Tornadoes | 1,564 | 13% | 28 h | 11 h | 13k |
| Aug 13, 2018 | No storm report | 2,325 | 20% | 14 h | 8.8 h | 13k |
| Jun 29, 2019 | No storm report | 2,768 | 24% | 8.5 h | 12 min | 12k |
| Apr 29, 2020 | No storm report | 2,169 | 19% | 14 h | 8.2 h | 11k |
| Mar 4, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 2,131 | 18% | 17 h | 2.8 h | 11k |
| Jan 10, 2020 | Thunderstorms | 2,222 | 19% | 8.0 h | 5.2 h | 11k |
| Jan 8, 2024 | No storm report | 1,287 | 11% | 23 h | 21 h | 11k |
| May 2, 2019 | No storm report | 2,390 | 20% | 20 h | 2.8 h | 11k |
| Jul 14, 2022 | No storm report | 3,721 | 32% | 5.8 h | 3.0 h | 11k |
| Jul 15, 2020 | No storm report | 4,463 | 38% | 2.2 h | 2.8 h | 10k |
| May 6, 2023 | No storm report | 2,873 | 25% | 15 h | 4.0 h | 9.5k |
| May 25, 2022 | No storm report | 3,981 | 34% | 4.5 h | 2.2 h | 9.4k |
| Mar 4, 2020 | No storm report | 2,360 | 20% | 29 h | 2.8 h | 9.3k |
| May 21, 2022 | No storm report | 1,729 | 15% | 9.0 h | 1.5 h | 9.1k |
After the peak
How fast the lights come back
Each line is one major outage, from its peak. The amber line is the typical path.
When it happens
The outage clock
Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.
What was happening
Weather behind the outages
Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Houston from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- No storm on record 33%
- Thunderstorms 18%
- Ice storm 17%
- Tornadoes 15%
- Winter storm 12%
- Tropical storm 4.0%
- Heat 0.6%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving Houston
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole Texas territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.
| Utility | Type | Outage min / yr | Excl. major storms | Outages / yr | Residential ¢/kWh | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entergy Texas Inc. | Investor Owned | 403 | 305 | 2.58 | 13.9 | 469k |
| Houston County Elec Coop Inc | Cooperative | 539 | 195 | 5.37 | 15.3 | 22k |
| Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC | Investor Owned | 232 | 67 | 1.55 | – | – |
EIA Form 861, latest year each utility reported. Outage minutes are SAIDI, the yearly minutes the average customer goes without power; outages a year are SAIFI.
About these numbers
Notes
Outages come from the EAGLE-I record of utility outage maps collected every 15 minutes by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hours without power are customer-hours divided by the county's 11,682 electricity customers. Averages use well-covered years from 2018. Outages shorter than 15 minutes, and utilities that publish no outage map, are not in the record, so these figures understate the total. How every number is made →