One month after Beryl, CenterPoint works to recover and prepare

HOUSTON (Nexstar) — Thursday marks one month since Beryl hit Houston, initially cutting power to more than two million Texans. While power has been restored for CenterPoint's customers, the energy monopoly behind the outages and recovery effort is working to comply with the state's new demands after allegations of improper preparation.

Gov. Greg Abbott set a July 31 deadline for CenterPoint to provide specific actions to address issues like vegetation removal, reducing future outages, prestaging workers for hurricane season, fixing poles and maintaining power at senior living facilities.

After the deadline passed, CenterPoint responded to all demands in a letter, which Abbott found insufficient. He has now imposed new deadlines with additional requirements to follow up on these issues.

Abbott said last week he spent two and a half hours with CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells and their regulatory director Jason Ryan, directing them to "adequately better prepare for the next severe weather event in Southeast Texas by improving their preparation and response practices."

Ed Hirs — an Energy Fellow at the University of Houston — compares the response to power outages post-Beryl to other hurricanes that decimated Texas in the past.

"After every hurricane, after every major storm event, not only in Houston but up and down the coast, everyone knows they need to do something to harden the local grid," Hirs said. "To replace the wooden utility poles with something stronger, to move some lines underground, if they can, to strengthen the connections above ground, and, most importantly, just clear the vegetation away ... None of this is new. Every government official knows this."

Hirs does not believe that Abbott's demands will be effective.

"The governor really is in no position to dictate to CenterPoint his team on the Public Utility Commission," Hirs said. "None of them have ever been in utility management. They're bureaucrats and political appointees. And you know, to his credit, Chair Gleason last week said, 'the Public Utility Commission bears some blame with us.'"

Texans are no strangers to weather-related power failures. Hirs noted the legislative changes after the February 2021 winter storm and questioned their impact on future events.

"We barely got by with the Winter Storm Elliot, just a year and a half ago," Hirs said. "In terms of hardening the Coastal Grids against these storms, everybody knows this has to happen."

Because of this historic lack of action, Hirs said the responsibility to fix Houston's power infrastructure falls on CenterPoint rather than the legislature.

"I don't know that the legislature can actually act in a positive fashion," Hirs said. "CenterPoint Energy needs to exercise executive leadership and get the job done. Send out crews, clear the lines, clear the areas, replace the poles."

CenterPoint announced its new Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative on Monday. According to a press release from CenterPoint, the initiative 'reflects direct feedback from Abbott and includes more than 40 actions the energy company will take to meet Abbott's requirements on an accelerated timeline.