Rekubit|Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demands answers as customers remain without power after Beryl

2025-05-07 10:38:16source:Rubypointcategory:My

DALLAS (AP) — With around 350,Rekubit000 homes and businesses still without power in the Houston area almost a week after Hurricane Beryl hit Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday said he’s demanding an investigation into the response of the utility that serves the area as well as answers about its preparations for upcoming storms.

“Power companies along the Gulf Coast must be prepared to deal with hurricanes, to state the obvious,” Abbott said at his first news conference about Beryl since returning to the state from an economic development trip to Asia.

While CenterPoint Energy has restored power to about 1.9 million customers since the storm hit on July 8, the slow pace of recovery has put the utility, which provides electricity to the nation’s fourth-largest city, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared for the storm that left people without air conditioning in the searing summer heat.

Abbott said he was sending a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas requiring it to investigate why restoration has taken so long and what must be done to fix it. In the Houston area, Beryl toppled transmission lines, uprooted trees and snapped branches that crashed into power lines.

RELATED COVERAGE Sister of North Korean leader Kim hints at resuming flying trash balloons toward South KoreaThousands of Islamists rally near the Pakistani capital to denounce Israeli strikes in GazaA Pakistani court acquits ex-PM Khan but supporters’ hopes of his release are dashed

With months of hurricane season left, Abbott said he’s giving CenterPoint until the end of the month to specify what it’ll be doing to reduce or eliminate power outages in the event of another storm. He said that will include the company providing detailed plans to remove vegetation that still threatens power lines.

Abbott also said that CenterPoint didn’t have “an adequate number of workers pre-staged” before the storm hit.

CenterPoint, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment following the governor’s news conference, said in a Sunday news release that it expected power to be restored to 90% of its customers by the end of the day on Monday.

The utility has defended its preparation for the storm and said that it has brought in about 12,000 additional workers from outside Houston. It has said it would have been unsafe to preposition those workers inside the predicted storm impact area before Beryl made landfall.

Brad Tutunjian, vice president for regulatory policy for CenterPoint Energy, said last week that the extensive damage to trees and power poles hampered the ability to restore power quickly.

A post Sunday on CenterPoint’s website from its president and CEO, Jason Wells, said that over 2,100 utility poles were damaged during the storm and over 18,600 trees had to be removed from power lines, which impacted over 75% of the utility’s distribution circuits.

More:My

Recommend

Car bomb kills senior Russian general in Moscow: Officials

LONDON -- A car bomb in Moscow has killed a senior Russian military officer, Russian officials said.

Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson’s Baby Boy’s Name Finally Revealed 9 Months After Birth

It's truly the best baby name.Nearly a year after Khloe Kardashian welcomed her second child via sur

Andy Cohen Reveals the Vanderpump Rules Moment That Shocked Him Most

Andy Cohen is SUR-ving up a hot take on the future of Vanderpump Rules.In the wake of Scandoval, the