HOUSTON – It’s been a week since Hurricane Beryl roared through southeast Texas, knocking out power to more than 2 million Houston area customers.
Though power is slowly coming back, there has been some significant progress in restoration, albeit taking longer than some customers would have liked. Even some KPRC 2 staff (including myself) were without power until this past weekend.
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And as conversations over accountability with local and state leadership as well as with CenterPoint Energy continue, new satellite images provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are giving a sobering look at the massive power outages across East Texas, caused by Beryl.
(NOTE: Look for the arrow in the middle of the photo and slide down to get a full before/after view)
According to NOAA, these images were captured by the Day/Night Band on the NOAA-21 satellite’s VIIRS instrument, which scans the entire Earth twice per day at a 750-meter resolution. Several visible and infrared channels enable it to detect dust, smoke, and haze associated with industrial pollution and fire.
On Monday night, CenterPoint claimed in an email it had restored power to 92 percent of impacted customers. All customers are expected to have their power restored by Friday. It’s important to note the date for restoration has had its goalpost moved each day so much so that Mayor John Whitmire held a special meeting Monday afternoon to extend the city’s local disaster declaration.
SEE ALSO: ‘Our system did not fail’: CenterPoint VP claims to KPRC 2 Investigates
The extension of the Local State of Disaster for the City of Houston was unanimously passed Monday. Governor Greg Abbott also held a press conference later that day, doubling down on his stance on demanding answers from CenterPoint Energy.
He stated that they have a deadline to give them information on their response or that Abbott suggests issuing an executive order.
“If CenterPoint does not respond to my request, I will be issuing an executive order imposing, what I think, are the appropriate standards,” Abbott said. “The standards I want to impose on CenterPoint would be far more costly than what they may be coming up with. Separate from that, if they don’t comply with my request and refuse to work with them, we’re going to completely re-evaluate the current status of CenterPoint in our area.”
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