Reuters / Adrees Latif
Seby Godinho and Jack Souza operate a convenience store without power in Oyster Creek after Hurricane Beryl on July 9.
Sign up for The Brief, the Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to date on the most important news in Texas.
HOUSTON – When there’s a power outage, eating becomes more difficult.
Ovens, refrigerators, microwaves and electric stovetops are becoming obsolete. That was evident in L. Myra Gainous’s shopping cart at a HEB grocery store Friday afternoon. When the 83-year-old Houstonian left the store, her cart was filled with chips, bread and fruit snacks – food she can eat until her power comes back on.
Gainous is one of almost 1 million customers Five days after Hurricane Beryl devastated the Texas Gulf Coast, people are still living without power. The largest concentration of customers without power remains in Harris County, the third-largest county in the country.
CenterPoint, the Houston-based electric utility that serves Harris and other surrounding counties, reported that about 820,000 customers were still without power as of Friday afternoon. And the company is working hard to restore power across the region. Many of those customers may have to wait until next week to be reconnected.
“CenterPoint is the one charging us,” Gainous said bluntly, “so they need to change something quickly.”
CenterPoint has restored power more quickly than during recent storms. But the Texas summer heat – the region is under a heat warning from the National Weather Service – and the power company’s poor communication are causing tensions.
Some are getting creative: A mural underneath Interstate 10 shared on social media reads “CenterPointle$$.”
In other cases, customer frustration has turned to violence. A man in Fort Bend County was charged with pointing a BB or airsoft gun at a CenterPoint employee who was investigating the area, ABC 13 reported.
“People are angry about the situation and the heat is obviously making all of us more frustrated and tempers are running high, but these people are just here to help us,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a press conference on the violence. “And they work very hard and very fast for us, these linemen. So please don’t take it out on them.”
And Republican Rep. Tom Oliverson of Cypress wrote on social media that a CenterPoint assembly site had been threatened with a drive-by shooting and would have to be relocated. CenterPoint confirmed the threat and said the site was now only being used to store materials. Houston police reported that a security guard learned secondhand of the threat, which was made due to the ongoing power outages. CenterPoint called the violent behavior “counterproductive” to restoring power.
Not all residents are willing to point the finger at CenterPoint. Many of the power outages were caused by trees on private property falling onto power lines, CenterPoint said. That point is not lost on Houston resident Alex Paredes. Paredes says the responsibility is everyone’s, pointing out that authorities do not have jurisdiction over trees on private property that overlook power lines.
“I think the homeowners have some responsibility when it comes to trees facing power lines,” Paredes said. “That’s not a city official’s responsibility.”
CenterPoint said in a press release that arborists worked on the lines “as soon as it was safe to leave the lines following the hurricane.” CenterPoint stressed that it is fully committed to restoring power to all of its customers.
“We are encouraged by the tremendous progress we have made while staying well ahead of our recovery expectations. We will not stop until every impacted customer is back online,” said Lynnae Wilson, senior vice president of electric business at CenterPoint.
The conflicts were exacerbated by faulty communications in the early days of the disaster. Two days after the blackouts began, there was still no timeline for when power would be restored. And CenterPoint’s utility map hadn’t worked since May. Houstonians had to rely on a map of open and closed Whataburgers to see where power was flowing.
Elected officials have also expressed frustration with the utility, calling the ongoing outages unacceptable. Gov. Greg Abbott told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday that he wants the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which regulates electricity in the state, to conduct an investigation into why the outages have lasted so long. He said that will include looking into whether staffing issues or infrastructure deficiencies were the cause. Abbott’s office did not respond to requests from The Texas Tribune for more information about what such an investigation will entail.
Nim Kidd, head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said it was up to the PUC to decide “what fines, fees or regulations” should be imposed on CenterPoint. The utility appeared before the PUC on Thursday, but regulators did not mention any potential fines — or regulations the utility may have violated. Commission Chairman Thomas Gleeson told the company it needed to communicate better with its customers — but did not criticize the pace or staffing levels.
At the same meeting, CenterPoint updated regulators on its progress in restoring power to millions of people across a vast swath of land hit by hurricane-force winds.
“We have never before restored service to more than a million customers just over two days after a hurricane, and that can only be done with significant preparedness,” Jason Ryan, the company’s executive vice president of regulatory services and government affairs, told state regulators.
This article originally appeared in the Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom that keeps Texans informed and engaged about the state’s politics and policy. For more information, visit texastribune.org.
Subscribe to the SA Current newsletter.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Þjórsárden| Or subscribe to our RSS feed
