Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Demands Answers as Customers Remain Without Power After Beryl.

Gov. Greg Abbott signs Senate Bill 2 and Senate Bill 3 at the Texas Capitol. The omnibus bills will change the state’s power gridPhoto bySophie Park/The Texas Tribune

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With around 270,000 homes and businesses still without power in the Houston area almost a week after Hurricane Beryl hit Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday said he’s demanding an investigation into the response of the utility that serves the area as well as answers about its preparations for upcoming storms.

“Power companies along the Gulf Coast must be prepared to deal with hurricanes, to state the obvious,” Abbott said at his first news conference about Beryl since returning to the state from an economic development trip to Asia.

While CenterPoint Energy has restored power to about 2 million customers since the storm hit on July 8, the slow pace of recovery has put the utility, which provides electricity to the nation’s fourth-largest city, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared for the storm that left people without air conditioning in the searing summer heat.

Key Points

• Governor's Demand: Abbott is sending a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas requiring an investigation into the delayed power restoration and preparedness for future storms.
• Extent of Damage: Beryl toppled transmission lines, uprooted trees, and snapped branches, significantly disrupting power in the Houston area.
• Utility's Response: CenterPoint Energy aims to restore power to 90% of its customers by Monday and has brought in about 12,000 additional workers from outside Houston.

CenterPoint's Defense

Following Abbott’s news conference, CenterPoint stated its top priority was restoring power to the remaining impacted customers as safely and quickly as possible. The utility emphasized its long-term investments in strengthening the area’s resilience to such storms and explained that pre-staging workers inside the predicted storm impact area would have been unsafe.

Brad Tutunjian, vice president for regulatory policy for CenterPoint Energy, noted last week that extensive damage to trees and power poles hampered the ability to restore power quickly. Jason Wells, president and CEO of CenterPoint, highlighted in a Sunday post on the company’s website that over 2,100 utility poles were damaged during the storm, and over 18,600 trees had to be removed from power lines, impacting over 75% of the utility’s distribution circuits.

Conclusion

As Texas grapples with the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, the focus now shifts to ensuring better preparedness and quicker recovery in the face of future storms. Gov. Abbott’s demand for a thorough investigation aims to hold utility companies accountable and push for more robust plans to mitigate such widespread outages in the future.

Source: AP News