Texas state senators grilled CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells on Monday over the company’s mishandling of Hurricane Beryl and its contentious $800 million investment into unused mobile generators.
The hurricane, which struck earlier this month, left approximately 2.7 million Texans without power at its peak and left thousands in the dark for weeks after the storm’s initial landfall, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Despite CenterPoint’s previous claim that the company had restored power to around 2 million residents shortly after the storm, significant outages persisted in the Houston area, causing widespread frustration and some deaths around the state.
In response to the disaster, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick formed a special 13-member committee led by Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) to analyze and critique the response of electric providers, particularly CenterPoint.
In his opening statement, Wells immediately apologized for the company’s errors in handling Hurricane Beryl.
“Our response to the impacts of Hurricane Beryl and our communications were not acceptable. They did not meet our expectations or those of our customers. And I take personal accountability for that. I want to apologize to our customers, our state, and their families for the frustrations they experienced during Hurricane Beryl and the restoration process,” said Wells, according to the Texas Scorecard.
Central to the senators’ criticism was CenterPoint’s controversial $800 million expense on temporary mobile generators. The decision to invest in these units came across as a failure, as the generators were reportedly not deployed during the storm.
“I’m really shocked that CenterPoint now or then would have thought that almost $800 million for two units that would rarely be used would be a reasonable and necessary cost,” said Sen. Phil King (R-Weatherford), per Texas Scorecard.
The hearing also highlighted issues with CenterPoint’s outage tracking system, which was criticized for inaccuracies that further aggravated many left without power and led Houstonians to utilize alternative ways to track outages around the city.
Speaking on the inadequate outage tracking system, Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) called it “probably the single, quite frankly, most double dumbass decision I’ve ever seen a major corporation make in your business.”
“I’m astonished that it would go down without a replacement being in process,” he added.
Wells responded by pledging a new and improved tracking system to be operational by August 1.
Despite mounting calls for his resignation, Wells said that he would remain in his position as CEO to continue guiding the company’s “momentum.”
Sen. Borris Miles (D-Miles) expressed his overall discontent with CenterPoint, referring to the hearing as a grim repetition of other severe weather management failures.
“I’m not happy to be here today because, colleagues, it seems like deja vu all over again. The human error could have been prevented. And we could have saved the most precious resources of Texas: Texans,” Miles said, per Texas Scorecard.
At a press conference in Houston earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott said, “CenterPoint has completely dropped the ball with regard to getting power back on… 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.”