CenterPoint CEO promises improvements as Texas scrutinizes company’s Beryl response

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

---

In a somber public meeting 17 days after Hurricane Beryl took down huge portions of the Houston region’s power infrastructure, CenterPoint Energy President and CEO Jason Wells apologized to customers and vowed to communicate better and make the system more resilient.

Wells and two other company officials at the Public Utility Commission of Texas meeting Thursday outlined a plan for how the utility would improve after this month’s outages left millions of people in the dark and without air conditioning for days in the summer heat. The PUC is responsible for making sure customers get reliable power and oversees utility costs.

CenterPoint maintains power poles and lines to deliver electricity in the area. Wells said the company would significantly increase its vegetation management, which includes trimming tree branches near power lines, and launch a new outage tracker by Aug. 1. It will also hire a new senior leader to focus on emergency response coordination.

“In times of emergency, our responsibility is to respond quickly, to communicate clearly, to provide accurate information and to restore power as rapidly and safely as we can,” Wells said. “I take personal accountability for the areas where we fell short of our customers’ expectations. Most importantly, I want to apologize to our customers for the frustration we caused. We will do better.”

CenterPoint officials during the meeting repeatedly committed to make changes urgently. But the conversation still left unanswered questions of why the utility hadn’t done more to strengthen its system in the first place — and what roles regulators, legislators and the utility had to play in the choices made.

“Some of the things that I heard today are things that the company should have already been thinking about doing,” PUC Commissioner Lori Cobos said.

A member of the public from Houston who came to speak to regulators set the tone of the meeting by reading the names of people who died in the storm. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has so far confirmed 18 people who died from Beryl. Eight of those deaths were caused by overheating. Across the state, officials have identified at least five more storm-related deaths.

Some 2.26 million CenterPoint customers lost power when Hurricane Beryl made landfall southwest of Houston on July 8 and pushed up into the sprawling city as a Category 1 storm, taking down trees and tree limbs.

In the days that followed, officials and residents heaped criticism on CenterPoint for failing to prepare adequately, communicate clearly and restore power efficiently. CenterPoint’s outage tracker was down, so residents did not quickly get clear information for when the power would come back. Hundreds of thousands still had no power one week after Beryl hit as the region endured dangerous heat.

The PUC has launched an investigation into CenterPoint. Gov. Greg Abbott, who appoints PUC commissioners, also called on CenterPoint to send him a memo outlining how it plans to do better during the rest of hurricane season. Two legislative committees will hold hearings next week on the state’s and utility companies’ disaster preparedness.

---

---

The company officials said they were already holding small group listening sessions, brought in experts to review its emergency response and nearly doubled their vegetation management workforce. But they said they still faced hurdles.

Their challenges include not having direct contact information for more than half of its customers because retail electric companies that sell power to residents and businesses maintain that data. CenterPoint officials said they would need new regulatory policy from the PUC to make it easier to get that information from the retail companies.

Commissioners cautioned other utilities in the state to take what happened during Beryl as a warning.

“This is a wake-up call to every utility around our state, that they have to take serious the storms that are facing their system, the challenges that are facing their systems, whether it be a wildfire that's going to let their customers go out, or a big storm or a derecho,” PUC Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty said.

Glotfelty continued to the CenterPoint executives: “I don't care what it is, you all know your system the best. But y’all have to do better. The customers deserve better. And we all are giving you a return that expects better. I know y'all can do it. I really do. And I hope y’all will lead in that regard.”

Disclosure: CenterPoint Energy has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

---

Big news: director and screenwriter Richard Linklater; NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher; U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California; and Luci Baines Johnson will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!