Houston News: Massive Power Outage Cripples Parts of Downtown Houston

A cable failure caused a massive power outage in downtown Houston Thursday morning, reports Houston News. The cable failure occurred around 3am at the substation, located on the north end of downtown Houston on McKee Street and Elysian Street.

Officials say that there were at least 13 buildings affected by the power outage. The Harris County Family Law Center on Congress Street lost power around 3:40am. CenterPoint officials confirmed that the Juvenile Justice Center, Islamic Temple, the King George Hotel and the Crispin building were also affected by the outage.

Only the family and juvenile courts are closed Thursday due to the power outage. Everyone holding a jury summons for today was to report to the jury assembly room. It's business as usual for all criminal and other civil courts.

All classes at the University of Houston-Downtown were canceled until 4pm. Evening classes are expected to be held. CenterPoint Energy was on the scene, attempting to fix the circuit. So far, the traffic lights on Congress near the Family Law Center were not affected.

"There are five circuits out due to damage to an underground distribution line. We don't know the cause of that damage," said Emily Mir-Thompson with CenterPoint Energy. "Crews are working to figure out what's happening and working as fast as possible to get the power restored."

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