HOUSTON – Following CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells exclusive interview with KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding, KPRC 2′s Amy Davis brought in five Houston community members to gauge how they feel about Wells’ responses.
The interview is the first time Wells sat down for an interview in front of television cameras and the first since Houston’s double whammy of natural disasters: a derecho in May and Hurricane Beryl in July.
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State Senator Carol Alvarado along with four CenterPoint Energy customers, Scott Dylla, Karen Mills, Nick Koruta and Alex Fazzino watched the interview with KPRC 2 Investigator Amy Davis.
“I think they’re making progress, I wish they had done some of these things beforehand,” Sen. Alvarado said. “It seems like they are taking some accountability, which is good.”
She said she was happy Wells said they are making vegetation control a priority, as many issues with the power were the result of overgrown vegetation.
Scott Dylla says he lives in West Columbia, at the very tail end of CenterPoint’s coverage area. He has been frustrated with the communication the company has given about power and restoration. He said just this last week, his power blinked and then went out 10 minutes later.
“Finally got in and said it would be back on at 9:15 p.m., five hours,” he said.
Dylla says the power was back 45 minutes later. Even though he can’t prove it, Dylla believes it was a planned outage.
“I’m assuming it was a planned outage, why weren’t we notified? I’ve replaced three TVs in the past years because of power outages,” he said.
Karen Mills says Wells’ interview was a frustrating one for her.
“It feels like now they are trying to take action after something happens. It feels like every time there is a storm now, they are going to trim trees. He says he is going to get things better, but not exactly how long and what cost,” she said. “I don’t feel secure, I went 10 days without power, calling CenterPoint three times a day.”
Nick Koruta says he has talked with ex-pats who tell him this area is the most unreliable grid they have ever dealt with.
“Working in the energy business, that’s a pretty sorry state, fourth largest city,” he said.
Koruta also said people shouldn’t have to put a generator in just to have reliable power.
“That flies in the face of everything we stand for in America,” he said.
Alex Fazzino says he dealt with issues before the derecho and Hurricane Beryl.
“I told them I had a tree that was consuming the service drop, I asked them to come out and service it, they said they would,” he said. “They told me the service drop was not their responsibility, it was my responsibility.”
He said he was told by multiple contractors they couldn’t even touch the service drop, and it was ultimately CenterPoint’s responsibility.
Fazzino also said he heard a lot of good things, but no plan.
“All I heard were goals, objectives and mission statements, I didn’t hear any game plan,” he said. “You admitted you failed and you are improving, but you never said what you failed on and what your improvements are going to be about.”
Wells interview comes two days before a meeting by the Public Utility Commission (PUC) in Houston. This meeting aims to allow Houstonians to share their experiences with CenterPoint’s response during and after the hurricane.
Click here for more information and for how you can get your thoughts to the PUC.
