Houston – As CenterPoint restores power to the final customers in the dark, we hear your pleas to hold the power company accountable. This major power outage seems to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. CenterPoint’s reliability issues have been festering for years.
Viewer Wilfredo Arriondo on Houston’s Westside wrote, “We have experienced frequent disruptions in our electricity supply with even minor weather events such as light rain or thunder. It’s concerning that our power fails so consistently under such conditions.”
- Who is responsible for trimming trees touching power lines?
- How often is that maintenance happening?
- And why can’t customers get straight answers from CenterPoint?
KPRC 2 Investigative reporter Amy Davis is digging into this issue to answer your questions.
In 2008 Hurricane Ike knocked out power to 95% of CenterPoint’s customers. The outages were largely caused by trees and limbs that blew into and onto power lines. After that storm in 2008, the Public Utility Commission passed a new rule that requires CenterPoint to report annually what they’re doing to manage trees and vegetation around power lines. Amy read every report filed since 2014 and found there is no way to tell you where or how many trees were trimmed. When customers call CenterPoint to report trees on power lines, they say they get the run around too.
RELATED: PUC rules around tree trimming
Houston customer says he tried to get help for low-hanging powerlines near trees
The week before Beryl pounded Houston Alex Fazzino in Barkley Square near Meyerland called CenterPoint Energy for help in his backyard. His service drop line connecting his home to Centerpoint’s main line was hanging so low he could touch it.
And he worried this tree growing all around the lines was not safe. He said the CenterPoint employees told him the tree wasn’t a problem and the low-hanging line wasn’t **their** problem.
“So they said therefore we are not going to trim the trees or we’re not supposed to are required to trim the tree that is swallowing up your service,” said Fazzino.
“They said they wouldn’t trim the trees and they wouldn’t move your line higher?” Amy asked.
“Correct,” said Fazzino.
Fast forward days after Beryl when all of Fazzino’s neighborhood lost power two out-of-town linemen came to assess the damage.
“First thing they said was, why is your line so low? And I said, well, because I, you know, asked if it could be raised. And CenterPoint told me, no, that it was my responsibility,” he explains. “They said no, it’s the power company’s responsibility to make sure that that service drop from the pole to your meter can or Weatherhead is at least 15ft in the air.”
Those out-of-state crews raised the line but before CenterPoint could restore Fazzino’s power they had to call in tree trimmers so they could see the damage to the lines underneath all the vegetation.
This scenario, however, seems to negate what CenterPoint reported to the PUC in this vegetation management report filed May 1st. Under reactive tree trimming maintenance, “this work is performed in response to specific requests from customers.”
CenterPoint reported to the PUC it spent more than $35 million trimming trees and vegetation in 2023 but the PUC doesn’t require the company to report where the maintenance was completed.
“Yeah. Where was the game plan? Right. Where was it and what areas did you work in? What did you accomplish? What do you have left to do?”
Kingwood customer complained about frequent power outages (before Beryl)
We know the Public Utility Commission is aware of intermittent outages caused by vegetation on lines. One customer complained to the PUC in January.. “we are constantly losing power in Kingwood regardless of weather, many times for multiple hours which require us to toss the contents of our refrigerator.”
A letter to the customer we obtained from the PUC reveals in just 12 months this homeowner lost power 32 times.
10 of those longer outages, the PUC said CenterPoint confirmed, were caused by vegetation. The cause of 21 of the smaller outages is unknown.
“Yeah. There’s no accountability, right?” said Fazzino.
That Kingwood homeowner did tell KPRC 2 that after she filed that complaint with the PUC Centerpoint was in her neighborhood trimming the tree branches around the power lines. And since that time in January, she hasn’t lost power at all until Hurricane Beryl.
We did ask CenterPoint to tell us where they trimmed all of that vegetation last year. They said they are currently working on restoring power but that they will get back to us.