By Chad T. Wilson Law Firm Staff — based on reporting by 12NewsNow, September 3, 2026. Read the original reporting here.
For many Southeast Texas businesses, the hardest part of Edouard was not a hole in the roof — it was the dark. Reporting indicated that, at the peak, roughly 80,000 Entergy Texas customers lost power, with restoration slowed by flooding, downed trees, and blocked roads across counties including Chambers, Liberty, and Montgomery. When the lights stay off for days, a power outage business interruption claim may become one of the most important parts of a commercial policyholder’s recovery — but only if the loss is documented correctly from the start.
Business-interruption coverage is designed to replace income a business loses when a covered event forces it to slow down or close. Extra-expense coverage helps pay the added costs of keeping the doors open — a rented generator, temporary relocation, or expedited restocking. The wrinkle with outages is the trigger. Some policies pay for lost income only when the loss follows direct physical damage to your own property. Others include off-premises power or utility-service interruption endorsements that reach damage at a substation or line miles away. A few impose a waiting period, meaning the first day or two of an outage is not covered. None of this is visible without reading your particular policy carefully.
After an outage, it is tempting to lump everything into one number. Carriers rarely see it that way. Keep distinct records for spoiled or unusable inventory, refrigeration and equipment that failed, the revenue you lost while closed, and any customers or contracts you could not serve because roads or access were cut off. A restaurant’s spoiled walk-in cooler, a clinic’s ruined vaccines, and a shop’s lost weekend sales are three different pieces of the same claim, and documenting them separately makes each one easier to prove.
Pull the records that show your normal operations and what changed. That means point-of-sale and sales history for comparable periods, spoilage and disposal logs with photos, invoices for generators, fuel, dry ice, and temporary space, and payroll records if you kept staff on during the closure. Save utility notices, outage timelines, and any communication about when power was expected to return. A clear, dated timeline of when you closed, why, and when you reopened is the backbone of the claim.
Outage-driven claims are among the most likely to be denied, delayed, or underpaid, often because the carrier points to a waiting period or a physical-damage requirement. If that happens, ask the insurer to identify the exact provision it is relying on, request the adjuster’s worksheet, and keep documenting your ongoing losses — business interruption can continue to accrue while a dispute is open. An estimate that ignores extra expense or cuts your lost-income period short is worth a second look before you accept it.
Chad T. Wilson Law Firm has resolved more than 6,000 property insurance claims for policyholders, and our commercial work often lives in exactly these details. As an experienced insurance claim lawyer team, we can read your business-interruption and utility-service provisions, help you assemble the income and expense proof that carriers respect, and connect the outage to the underlying storm damage claims where the policy requires it. Headquartered in Webster, Texas, we represent policyholders nationwide on contingency: no recovery, no fee. Denied, delayed, or underpaid? Call (833) 942-0678.
This article is informational only and is not legal advice. Coverage depends on your specific policy and facts, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Sources: 12NewsNow, Entergy Storm Center, CW39 Houston
