Community leaders and members of Congress met with CenterPoint CEO and other executives to discuss how they can improve response to future storms.
HOUSTON — A coalition of Houston civic organizations and politicians met with CenterPoint Energy executives Thursday to discuss the power company’s woes in the wake of Hurricane Beryl. The storm knocked out power to more than 2.2 million CenterPoint customers when it made landfall in the early morning hours of July 8. A week later, more than 1 million customers remained without power as temperatures rose.
Bishop James Dixon said the group, including Rep. Al Green and Rep. Sylvia Garcia, met with CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells to express their collective concerns about the impact that CenterPoint’s massive and prolonged power outages had on people across the region.
“We are all part of the regional family and we see so much suffering from the elderly, children and people in every corner of our city, including businesses that have been severely affected as a result of Hurricane Beryl,” Dixon said.
He said CenterPoint executives acknowledged that mistakes were made and things could have been done better, including a significant gap in keeping the community informed with accurate and up-to-date information.
“Not only were we in the dark when it came to electricity, but also communications,” Dixon said.
Garcia said she was “mad as hell” that CenterPoint failed in three key areas: communication, coordination and command.
“To his credit, he (Wells) used the words, he said, ‘We failed the community,’ and I agree with him and they failed miserably,” Garcia said.
Green called the conversation “very frank and candid” and said CenterPoint executives felt “humiliated.”
“They have accepted their responsibility. Now they have to do something to show us that we will not allow this to happen again in the future,” Green said.
During the massive blackouts, at least seven Houston-area residents, ages 50 to 110, died of hyperthermia from the lack of power. That number is expected to rise.
Mary Ramos of LULAC said she attended Thursday’s meeting to advocate for seniors.
“A lot of these nursing homes didn’t have electricity for days, especially those that had disabled seniors. There was no electricity and this is an eight-story building, how were they going to get down?” Ramos asked. “I don’t understand how they couldn’t have been taken care of first.”
Businesses forced to close lost millions of dollars and many employees went more than a week without pay because their workplace had no electricity.
Dixon said the devastation a storm stronger than Category 1 could have on the Houston area is unimaginable.
“It’s a wake-up call for us in a significant way, that we really need CenterPoint and all of our leaders to start thinking together about what we need to do to better prepare for these devastating events,” Dixon said. “Clearly, this storm made it clear to us that we were not prepared for anything more significant.”
As first reported by KHOU 11 Investigates, CenterPoint did not send out-of-town crews to the Houston area ahead of the hurricane, delaying efforts to bring in outside help with the massive outages.
“We want to see better response capability and preparedness from CenterPoint from an infrastructure perspective,” Dixon said. “But also from a human concern and caring perspective. There are things that CenterPoint could have done and we hope they do in the future to help mitigate the negative impact on citizens when these types of natural disasters occur.”
Dixon spoke from experience. He said his Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church was without power for more than eight days, but they still fed 5,000 people at three separate events. He called for churches to be added to the list of places that receive priority because of the role they play in a disaster.
“Churches serve as community centers, not just as worship centers,” Dixon said. “Churches are cooling centers, shelters and feeding centers.”
Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to CenterPoint outlining several steps he wants the company to take to improve its response to future storms. In the letter, Abbott said he was concerned that the company was putting its bottom line over the well-being of Texans by cutting costs. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also announced the creation of a special Senate committee to investigate the energy issues.
