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| CenterPoint Energy, the electricity supplier for Houston and environs, is under fire for taking too long to restore power after Hurricane Beryl hit the region this past Monday. |
At least for many.
Something like nearly 1 million homes and businesses remained without power as of Friday, more than four days after winds from Hurricane Beryl took down a seemingly uncountable number of power lines, poles and trees.
Right after the storm, 2.7 million homes and businesses in the Houston metro were without power. Up to half a million might not have power back by Monday. The slow pace of utility repairs have angered residents amid typical Houston heat and humidity.
CenterPoint Energy, the main power supply for Houston and environs is facing plenty of criticism that they were ill prepared for the storm and is not doing enough now to restore power.
High temperatures around Houston are in the low 90s to mid 90s, with temperatures only falling to the upper 70s for lows. .
This is actually fairly typical for July days in the area. Still, the National Weather Service office in Houston issued a heat advisory because the widespread lack of air conditioning is endangering peoples' health. It didn't help Wednesday that the air was dirty: An air quality alert was also in effect.
On Friday, thunderstorms were providing ever so slightly cooler conditions in Houston, but it was still terribly humid. And lightning strikes threatened new power outages. Then the heat comes roaring back.
Already, nine people have died in Texas and Louisiana from the effects of Beryl - their lives ended by falling trees, drowning while trapped in cars, or whose medical devices conked out along with the electricity.
The lack of air conditioning could easily mean additional deaths, if it hasn't already. The more days the elderly and vulnerable are exposed to high heat and humidity without relief, the more endangered they become.
Already, two people have died in Harris County, which is home to Houston because of carbon monoxide poisoning from gas-powered generators, CNN reports.
Amid all this, CenterPoint doesn't exactly have a great reputation. It's regarded by many as unreliable
"Its grid, according to data collected by the firm Whisker Labs, which tracks power outages through devices in ratepayer homes, is one of the most unstable in the United States despite Houston's hurricane-prone Gulf Coast location. Whisker found that even before the storm hit Monday, outages in CenterPoint's service territory were happening at more than twice the national average," the Washington Post reported.
Calls for CenterPoint to do a better job are one of the few bipartisan issues Texans can agree.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, traveling in Asia, released a statement calling for an investigation as to why Houston keeps having these big power outages.
Meanwhile, Democratic Houston Mayor John Whitmire said, "We demand that they do better."
CenterPoint disputes that allegation, saying they restored power quickly to a million or so customers after the storm. The utility says it also has a "resiliency plan:
"CenterPoint this year presented regulators with a sweeping $2 billion 'resiliency' plan aimed at shoring up the power grid against extreme weather. The plan, which calls for upgrading poles and wires, deploying technologies to reroute power when lines go down and burying some lines is lumbering through the approval process."
Houston and Texas as a whole has been beset with big power outages in recent years. About a million people around Houston lost power during and after a May derecho. Houston was also hit hard by power outages when a deep freeze caused power to fail statewide.
It's also the start of hurricane season. There's no reason why another hurricane can't hit Houston this year. Especially given that it is still expected to be an extraordinarily busy season.
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