270,000 Still Without Power Almost A Week After Hurricane Beryl; Texas Governor Demands Investigation

Nearly a week after Hurricane Beryl ravaged Texas, approximately 270,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area remain without power. On Sunday, Governor Greg Abbott called for an investigation into CenterPoint Energy's response and preparations for future storms.

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

CenterPoint Energy has restored power to about 2 million customers since the storm hit on July 8. However, the slow pace of recovery has led to increased scrutiny. The utility, which supplies electricity to the nation's fourth-largest city, is under pressure to explain whether it was adequately prepared for the storm that left many without air conditioning in the sweltering summer heat.

Abbott said that he is sending a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas, demanding an investigation into the prolonged power restoration process and what measures are necessary to prevent future delays.

Hurricane Beryl caused significant damage in the Houston area, toppling transmission lines, uprooting trees, and snapping branches that fell onto power lines. With several months of hurricane season remaining, Abbott has given CenterPoint until the end of the month to outline its plans to reduce or eliminate power outages in future storms. This includes providing detailed plans to remove vegetation that threatens power lines.

Abbott also criticized CenterPoint for not having an “adequate number of workers pre-staged” before the storm hit. CenterPoint defended its preparation for the storm, stating that it had brought in about 12,000 additional workers from outside Houston. It stated that it would have been unsafe to preposition those workers within the predicted storm impact area before Hurricane Beryl made landfall.

Following Abbott’s news conference, CenterPoint also said that its top priority was restoring power to the remaining impacted customers as safely and quickly as possible. The utility expects to have restored power to 90% of its customers by Monday.

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