HOUSTON – Following Hurricane Beryl, Senator Ted Cruz has written a letter to CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells, where he reiterated his call for an after-action report from the company about what went wrong and what the company will do to improve its response in the future.
“CenterPoint’s response to Hurricane Beryl—a Category 1 hurricane that hit at the beginning of storm season—was a failure, and Texans deserve better from the largest utility company in the region,” Cruz said in the letter.
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Cruz outlined questions he wants to see answered in an after-action report.
- What mistakes did CenterPoint make regarding Hurricane Beryl?
- Did CenterPoint pre-position sufficient assets (linemen, equipment, etc.) to respond as quickly as needed to the power outages in Houston? How could CenterPoint have done better?
- Would more linemen and equipment, pre-positioned, have made a material difference in response time?
- Did CenterPoint rely on projections that the storm would hit further south than it did, and did that mistaken reliance cause CenterPoint to fail to plan sufficiently for a major Houston outage?
- Our constituents have reported that other power companies who lost coverage did a far better job restoring power and communicating with customers than did CenterPoint. Why is that? What lessons can be learned?
- On the call, you said repeatedly that CenterPoint failed to communicate with its customers. How, specifically? What can be done in the future to ensure clear and direct communication with customers to let them know when to expect power to be restored?
- What facilities were prioritized in restoring power? Were hospitals? Nursing homes, hospices, and other places that house vulnerable populations? What was the order of prioritization?
- What can be done to make the Houston energy infrastructure more resilient to storms? We live on the Gulf Coast. We know there will be future hurricanes. How can we avoid the life-threatening extended power outages that occurred with Hurricane Beryl?
Cruz’s letter comes weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott said he was giving CenterPoint Energy until July 31 to provide his office with specific actions they would take to improve future response.
Hearings are also being held in Austin on the matter with CenterPoint executives testifying before a special senate committee.
The special committee was created by Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick days after Beryl roared through SE Texas, knocking out power to over 2 million CenterPoint customers.
Some didn’t get their power back for more than a week and were forced to live in dangerously hot conditions inside their homes with no air conditioning, while temperatures outside soared into the 90s. Many of them lost their lives to heat illness.
You can read the full letter below: