SEATTLE - Almost 300,000 Texas residents are still without power a week after Hurricane Beryl hit the state coastline as a Category 1 storm. With wind speeds that were reported to be as high as 80 mph and four deaths reported, Beryl caused major power outages to some parts of the state, affecting about two million customers.
Now, Gov. Greg Abbott is demanding answers from electricity companies as well as utility providers as thousands of customers are still without power. "It is imperative we investigate how and why some Texas utilities were unable to restore power for days following a Category 1 Hurricane," Abbott said after returning to the state from an economic development trip to Asia. "Power companies along the Gulf Coast must be prepared to deal with hurricanes, to state the obvious," he added.
One of the companies facing scrutiny is CenterPoint Energy, which provides most of the electricity to the city of Houston. The slow pace of recovery has created questions over whether or not the company was sufficiently prepared for the storm. Gov. Abbott said he was giving CenterPoint until the end of July to specify what it will be doing to reduce or eliminate power outages in the future, he also argues that the company did not count with "an adequate number of workers pre-staged" before the storm hit the Texas coastline.
Additionally, the Republican governor said he was sending a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas requiring it to investigate why restoration has taken so long and the steps that must be done in order to fix it.
On July 14, CenterPoint Energy said that service has now been restored to more than 85% of impacted customers and that they are on track to reach 90% restored by July 15. The company has defended its preparations for the storm and said that 12,000 additional workers were brought from outside of Houston to combat the threat.
CenterPoint said it remained committed to working with state and local leaders and to doing a "thorough review of our response."
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.
With thousands of Texas residents still waiting to get their service restored, cooling centers and shelters around the Houston area remain open. Government officials and nonprofit organizations began opening up community centers where impacted residents can cool off in air-conditioning spaces, charge their electronic devices and, in some cases, receive food and water.
Hurricane Beryl may have caused up to $32bn worth of damages and losses in the United States, according to preliminary figures by AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company.
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