Governor Abbott takes action after widespread power outages – Texas

(The Center Square) – Governor Greg Abbott on Sunday listed a series of failures that he said were the fault of energy providers, and in particular the largest utility in the Houston area, CenterPoint Energy, which were “not adequately prepared for a hurricane like Beryl.”

He met with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and other officials in Houston to discuss ongoing reconstruction efforts after a Category 1 hurricane hit the country a week ago and more than a million people are still without power.

At a press conference, Abbott said he had directed the head of the Public Utilities Commission to investigate several outages and made a series of demands that CenterPoint must implement to “take immediate action to improve its hurricane preparation and response efforts following repeated and sustained power outages in the greater Houston area.”

Abbott gave CenterPoint until July 31 to comply with the request, otherwise he announced further measures by executive order.

“Our number one goal is to save lives,” Abbott said. Texans who still don’t have power continue to struggle with “vital problems, not because of the hurricane itself, but because of the lack of power.”

No power means more than a million Texans are without food, water and air conditioning in extreme heat conditions, “putting lives at risk on a daily basis,” Abbott said. State and local authorities are providing prepared meals and delivering water and ice in “the quantities requested by local authorities,” he said.

The state is also supplying hospitals and health care facilities with supplies and equipment and is “bringing or organizing more police officers to assist Houston and other local police forces” after Houston police reported a “slight increase in crime” due to ongoing power outages.

“The failure of utilities to deliver power to their customers is completely unacceptable,” Abbott said. “Utilities along the Gulf Coast need to be prepared for hurricanes, that much is clear. However, early indications are that some utilities are not adequately prepared for a hurricane like Beryl.”

Both the Public Utility Commission and the state legislature will investigate the outages, and the governor will work with lawmakers to pass legislation to improve power reliability in the next legislative session, Abbott said. Last week, Patrick said the state legislature would investigate CenterPoint, citing similar concerns, The Center Square reported.

“But we are still in hurricane season and solutions cannot wait until the next session,” Abbott continued. “They are needed now to minimize power outages while we respond to tropical weather for the rest of the summer and this fall to avoid further power outages.”

Abbott then listed extensive shortcomings that he believed needed to be addressed in the demands he made.

“CenterPoint has acknowledged that Beryl was a severe, vegetation-related storm,” he said, noting that the company is responsible for clearing vegetation before a hurricane arrives. Some reports show that CenterPoint “spends far less per customer on vegetation removal than some other electric utilities.” He said all vegetation must be removed by Aug. 31.

According to multiple reports, “CenterPoint appears to have been caught off guard by Beryl’s unexpected arrival in Houston and the level of destruction it caused,” he said. “A Gulf Coast energy company should never be caught off guard. It must always remain vigilant. And even then, a Category 1 hurricane should never affect the power grid in the state of Texas.”

While CenterPoint has claimed it deployed thousands of additional linemen and other personnel to speed up the rebuilding process, some reports say “many of those workers were slow to arrive on site due to various policies.” These include not training workers until after the hurricane, not before, and not deploying workers days after the hurricane, rather than immediately afterward. Another reason was “haggling with workers over pay, and the list goes on,” he said. “The bottom line is this: Regardless of the reason, CenterPoint did not have enough workers on site to immediately fix the power outage.”

Abbott also said there were allegations that “CenterPoint skimped and cut corners, slowing the rebuilding process. These allegations need to be investigated. We need to know if CenterPoint is protecting Texans or if it is just protecting its own pocketbook.”

“CenterPoint has admitted, among other things,” that it did not replace the power poles immediately but waited until the end of hurricane season in late October, he said, adding that “those poles need to be repaired” before the next storm hits.

Abbott directed CenterPoint to inform his office of the steps it will take to remove any vegetation that poses a threat to a power line, develop a plan to prepare in advance for any tropical storms that may reach the Gulf Coast, and indicate the steps it will take to have enough linemen and other personnel to respond immediately to any power outages that may occur from a tropical storm that reaches their service area by the end of the month.

If CenterPoint does not comply, he will request that the PUC dismiss its pending “claim for profit restitution.” He also said the state may need to “reconsider the area that CenterPoint manages or … has mismanaged. Perhaps their area is too large for them to manage adequately. It’s time to reevaluate whether or not CenterPoint should have such a large area.”