Additional Coverage:
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demands answers as customers remain without power after Beryl (newsbreak.com)
DALLAS — Nearly a week since Hurricane Beryl battered Texas, approximately 350,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area remain without electricity. Governor Greg Abbott, speaking Sunday, called for an investigation into the utility responsible and questioned their readiness for future storms.
“Given our location, power companies here should naturally be equipped to handle hurricanes,” stated Abbott during his initial briefing on Beryl after an overseas economic mission in Asia.
Though CenterPoint Energy has managed to restore service to about 1.9 million customers since the storm struck on July 8, the slow progress has led to increased scrutiny of the utility. Critics argue the company may not have been fully prepared for the hurricane, which left residents sweltering without air conditioning amid high summer temperatures.
Governor Abbott announced he would direct the Public Utility Commission of Texas to delve into why power restoration is lagging and to identify necessary improvements. He pointed out that in the Houston region, the hurricane toppled transmission lines and caused extensive tree damage that interfered with power lines.
With more of the hurricane season ahead, Abbott set a deadline at the end of this month for CenterPoint to outline strategies to prevent or mitigate future outages. He emphasized the need for a detailed plan to trim or remove trees posing risks to power lines.
Furthermore, Abbott criticized CenterPoint for not having enough personnel on standby before the hurricane made landfall.
CenterPoint, which has yet to respond to the governor’s recent comments, indicated in a Sunday press release that it hopes to have 90% of its customers’ power restored by the end of Monday. The utility has defended its storm preparations, noting that it brought in some 12,000 additional personnel from outside Houston. It argued that prepositioning these workers in the predicted storm path would have been hazardous prior to the storm’s arrival.
Brad Tutunjian, CenterPoint’s vice president for regulatory policy, explained last week that workers faced challenges in rapidly restoring power due to widespread damage to trees and power poles.
On its website, CenterPoint’s President and CEO, Jason Wells, posted that more than 2,100 utility poles were damaged and over 18,600 trees needed clearing from power lines, affecting over 75% of its distribution circuits.