Gov. Greg Abbott is calling for immediate improvements in hurricane preparation and response efforts following continued widespread power outages in the Houston area.
At a press conference held Monday inside NRG Arena in Houston, Abbott said that “CenterPoint has completely dropped the ball with regard to getting power back on,” condemning the company for leaving nearly 200,000 Houstonians without power, more than a week after Hurricane Beryl’s landfall in Texas.
Public Utility Commission chairman Thomas Gleeson said at the press briefing, “CenterPoint has to do better. I cannot urge this enough. I have tried to stress with their executives that CenterPoint has to have a sense of urgency.”
Abbott voiced similar frustration at a press conference on Sunday over the continued power outages still affecting Texans, stressing that such failures pose life-threatening risks to residents across the state.
“First and foremost, Texas’ No.1 goal is to protect life,” Abbott said at the conference.
“An issue that we see in the ongoing response to Hurricane Beryl are life-based issues, not because of the hurricane itself, but because of the lack of power supply. The failure of power companies to provide power to their customers is unacceptable,” he added.
Alongside Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and various state and local officials, Abbott outlined new directives for CenterPoint Energy. The utility company has been given until the end of July to submit a detailed plan to address current power outage issues and to outline preventative measures for the future.
Responding to CenterPoint’s inability to restore power to Houstonians a week after Hurricane Beryl, Abbott said, “CenterPoint has repeatedly failed to deliver power to its customers. To help Texans in the Greater Houston area and to avoid a repeat of unacceptable power outages, I will give CenterPoint until the end of the month to provide my office with specific actions to address power outages and reduce the possibility that power will be lost during a severe weather event.”
“If CenterPoint fails to comply, I will issue an Executive Order to impose actions on the company that are geared to keep the power on,” Abbott concluded.
Key priorities in Abbott’s new demands for the company include the removal of vegetation close to power lines and a more advanced preparation schedule ahead of future tropical storms, according to the press release.
According to Abbott, the state has distributed over 5.1 million bottles of water, more than 679,600 meals, and over 206,300 bags of ice to affected communities.
Additionally, a formal request to extend federal disaster declarations to accommodate ongoing recovery efforts remains pending with FEMA, per the press release.
After Hurricane Beryl swept through Houston on July 8, approximately 87% of CenterPoint’s 2.6 million customers experienced power outages. According to a report from The Texas Tribune, as more than 200,000 customers remain without electricity, CenterPoint has warned that power may not be restored in some areas for at least another week.