Power had been restored to about 1.2 million households and businesses on the morning of July 11, CenterPoint executive vice president Jason Ryan told the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Crews expect to restore electricity for another 750,000 customers this weekend, he said.
“That leaves about 500,000 customers that we currently expect to have outages that go into next week,” Ryan said.
What you need to know
It will take longer to restore power in areas hardest-hit by the storm—including The Woodlands and Matagorda, Brazoria and Galveston counties on the Texas coast—Ryan said. He did not estimate how long complete power restoration would take, but said CenterPoint will continue to update customers daily.
“Where we have to rebuild large spans of infrastructure, with poles that snapped in half laying on the ground ... that is the kind of work that's going to lead to those extended power outages,” Ryan told commissioners.
Over 10,000 workers from companies across the state and country are helping CenterPoint respond to the storm, bringing the power company’s current workforce to around 12,000 people. With Southeast Texas under a heat advisory, the safety of crew members is a top priority, Ryan said.
“These men and women are working 16-hour shifts,” Ryan said. “It's important that they take the other eight to rest, because these are dangerous conditions—it’s hot out there. ... A lot of these crews don't come from places where it feels like 110 degrees. So if our customers see crews standing on the side of the road or in their trucks, it may be to cool off, take a break, stay safe.”
More details
CenterPoint began preparing for Hurricane Beryl several days before it made landfall, Ryan said. Crews waited outside Houston until the storm passed through, then entered the area once it was safe to do so on the afternoon of July 8. He said teams had to assess damages and clear debris before others could begin restoring power.
“We understand the frustration of not immediately seeing all of this happen,” Ryan said. “But until we do this damage assessment, we can’t effectively deploy those crews. ... So, if you are needing to do some construction, but there's trees that have to be moved before you can do your work, then you're gonna be sitting there in the neighborhood in your truck, waiting on [someone else] to finish clearing the trees.”
CenterPoint had restored power for about half of its affected customers by the morning of July 11. Ryan said this was substantially better than the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in 2008, when it took the company about six days to reach 50% power restoration.
“We have never restored more than a million customers a little over two days after a hurricane before and you can only do that with significant readiness,” Ryan said. “But we know we still have a lot of work to do.”
Looking ahead
Commissioners emphasized that CenterPoint needs to do a better job communicating with its customers and prioritize listening to feedback after repairs are complete.
“Go talk to your customers, go talk to those residents about what happened, about ways that you feel you all can improve. Get feedback from them about their view on what can be improved,” PUC chair Thomas Gleeson said. “Because as we learned in this commission, after [Winter Storm] Uri, communication is the key to everything. The infrastructure’s gonna break, things are gonna happen, but if people feel they’re being effectively communicated with, it makes it a lot easier to go through it.”
Residents and state leaders have repeatedly criticized CenterPoint’s response to the hurricane. The expectation that 500,000 customers will be without power one week after the storm is “not acceptable ... it's a terrible situation for people who are in this heat,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in Houston on July 11.
“We're going to investigate it, we're going to get to the bottom of it,” said Patrick, who is serving as governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is on a pre-planned trip to Asia. “We are always going to have big storms in this area. We have lots of trees that hit power lines. That's going to happen, but we have to be sure that they were prepared.”
Gleeson assured residents the PUC meeting July 11 was “the first step in this process, not the last step.” The PUC will likely publish a report with its findings and possible solutions before the Texas Legislature meets in January, he said.
Also of note
Other utilities in eastern and coastal Texas communities also shared updates with the PUC July 11.
Entergy Texas president and CEO Eliecer Viamontes said about 105,000 of his company’s 512,000 total customers were still without power. The utility serves 27 counties in Southeast Texas.
At least 90% of Entergy customers will see their power restored by the end of the week, Viamontes said.
“What stands out to me is that this storm is further evidence of why hardening the grid is so important,” Viamontes told the commission. “That investment serves to reduce the extent and duration of outages and reduces overall storm costs. Downed trees and flying vegetation, which damaged lines ... are a major contributor [to] the outages, we should continue to explore how best to manage that risk, which can affect even hardened facilities.”
Texas-New Mexico Power had restored electricity for about 75% of its customers along the Gulf Coast and roughly 30,000 customers remained without power, according to vice president Stacy Whitehurst. He said the utility was bringing in additional crews to help speed up the process.
“We know that our customers want and need their power back on as soon as possible,” Whitehurst said. “We understand their frustrations—our employees are some of the same customers that have no power. Our goal is to have the bulk of the customers up by this weekend, but [restoration in] areas with significant damage may go into next week.”
Chad Burnett, a vice president at AEP Texas, said the utility had restored power to about 95% of its customers with just over 2,000 remaining. AEP serves portions of south and west Texas.
