Gov. Abbott meets with CenterPoint, provides improvement plan

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- On Thursday, Governor Abbott met with CenterPoint Energy leaders at the Texas Capitol in Austin to discuss their proposal to better respond to future severe weather events.

This comes after the destruction from Hurricane Beryl that left millions without power during the Texas summer heat.

The Office of the Texas Governor said Abbott told CenterPoint Energy that their proposal was inadequate and instructed them that more needed to be done and it must be completed faster than originally proposed.

CenterPoint Energy originally wanted to address high risk vegetation issues by the end of the year, however, according to Abbott's new improvement plan that new timeline will be by the end of August. CenterPoint Energy previously said fallen trees and branches contributed to outages across Houston.

Abbott's plan also will require CenterPoint Energy to now provide an estimated time for 100% of impacted customers for restoration of the entire system within 24 hours of a tropical storm exiting the area.

By the end of August, or five days before the next tropical storm hits CenterPoint's service area, the utility company will begin using predictive modeling tools.

CenterPoint Energy by August 29 will also re-train call center operators, as well as launch a new campaign to enroll customers in a text alert service to keep customers up to date on outage restoration.