Abbott Demands Answers From CenterPoint as 260,000 in Texas Still Without Power

A fallen uprooted tree rests against a house in the Third Ward neighborhood in Houston, Texas, on July 12, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that utility firm CenterPoint Energy outline the steps it has taken to address power supply outages during extreme weather events, as hundreds of thousands of customers remain without electricity following Hurricane Beryl.

The hurricane hit southern Texas and Houston on July 8 and disrupted the power supply to millions of customers, leaving people without air conditioning amid high temperatures. Although power has been restored for many households, hundreds of thousands of residents remain without it.

Mr. Abbott criticized power companies during a July 14 news conference, calling the utility firms’ failure to provide power to customers “unacceptable.”

He specifically highlighted CenterPoint’s outage. More than 289,000 households in Texas were out of power as of 9:45 a.m. ET on July 15; more than 262,000 of them were CenterPoint customers.

“To help Texans in the Greater Houston area and to avoid a repeat of unacceptable power outages, I will give CenterPoint until the end of the month to provide my office with specific actions to address power outages and reduce the possibility that power will be lost during a severe weather event,” Mr. Abbott said.

“If CenterPoint fails to comply, I will issue an Executive Order to impose actions on the company that are geared to keep the power on.”

In a July 14 statement, CenterPoint claimed to have restored power to more than 85 percent of affected customers and said that it was on track to hit the 90 percent restoration target on July 15.

Power to more than 1.9 million households has been restored, and 14,000 crew members are working to bring electricity back to the remaining customers, according to the company.

Responding to Mr. Abbott’s news conference, CenterPoint said it was “committed to working together with the State, local government, regulators, and community leaders both to help the Greater Houston area recover from Hurricane Beryl and to improve for the future.”

The company had prepared 3,000 crew members in the service territory ahead of the storm to tackle the fallout from the weather event, it said.

In a move to strengthen Greater Houston’s resilience against extreme weather, CenterPoint doubled investments in electric systems, including modernization efforts, over the past five years, according to the company.

CenterPoint also said it had 15,000 poles and more than 17,000 transformers going into the storm event, that a little more than 2,100 poles have been used for restoration, and that crews have removed more than 18,600 trees affecting transmission lines as part of restoring power.

Mr. Abbott asked CenterPoint to provide details on how it plans to remove all vegetation threatening power lines, how the company will prepare in advance to deal with tropical storms in the Gulf Coast, and what actions it plans to take to prepare enough personnel to immediately respond to power outages during storms.

Restoration Work, Safety Precautions

During the news conference, Mr. Abbott also called on citizens not to interfere in the activities of the linemen working to restore power.

“In recent days, linemen have been physically threatened—sometimes attacked—while doing their jobs to get power back on. There’s no reason to EVER threaten someone’s life. Don’t interfere with those working to restore power. You’re slowing the process down,” he said in a July 15 post on social media.

CenterPoint advised people to follow safety measures while the power outage situation is being resolved. It recommended that citizens stay at least 35 feet away from a downed power line or damaged electric equipment. All equipment should be treated as energized.

The company asked people to be cautious around restoration crews and to give workers plenty of room to assess damages and make repairs.

The utility firm also warned that fraudsters could seek to take advantage of the situation and recommended that only workers who show a company identification badge be allowed inside homes for repairs.

“CenterPoint is currently experiencing longer than usual hold times across its region,“ the company stated. ”The Customer Service team is only accepting calls for electric and natural gas emergencies at this time.”

Earlier on July 13, Texas announced that 17 counties were eligible for federal disaster assistance because of the effects of Hurricane Beryl.

The state has distributed more than 3.67 million water bottles, more than 472,000 ready-to-eat meals, and more than 127,700 ice bags to affected communities.