TL/DR –
Half a million Texans are likely to be without electricity into early next week following Hurricane Beryl, raising concerns over food spoilage and heat stroke. Houston-area utility CenterPoint Energy has been criticized for failing to protect its grid, described by power outage tracking firm Whisker Labs as one of the most unstable in the US, with outages occurring twice as often as the national average. CenterPoint officials claim their system operated as designed and power has been restored to over 1.1 million customers, however further restoration may take days.
Power crisis in Texas following Hurricane Beryl
Half a million Texans face a heatwave with no electricity into early next week due to Hurricane Beryl’s havoc on Monday, inciting frustration towards the large Houston utility, CenterPoint Energy, for being ill-prepared for a predictable summer storm.
After the Category 1 hurricane devastated power lines and utility poles, food is spoiling in idle refrigerators, hospitals are struggling to keep up with heat stroke patients, businesses are unable to operate, and residents are ordered to stay home with at least three or four more days of suffering predicted.
The Houston-area utility, CenterPoint Energy, found itself particularly susceptible. According to data by Whisker Labs, which monitors power outages through devices in ratepayer homes, its grid is among the most unstable in the United States. This is despite Houston’s frequent hurricanes. Outages in CenterPoint’s service territory occurred at more than twice the national average even before Hurricane Beryl.
However, CenterPoint officials question Whisker Labs’ findings, stating their system is reliable. Darin Carroll, the company’s senior vice president for operations, noted the quick restoration of power to 1.1 million customers by Thursday and expects hundreds of thousands more to be restored over the weekend. But, he also confirmed that approximately 500,000 ratepayers are likely to remain without power by early next week.
Amid the crisis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called for an investigation into the frequent long-term, widespread power outages in the Houston region. Houston Mayor John Whitmire expressed his shared anger and frustration with the residents.
Increasingly common extreme weather events in the age of climate change have frequently found power companies facing angry customers and mounting lawsuits due to failures to prepare. Activists and experts criticize CenterPoint for failing to make critical improvements for customers while assembling a $37 million pay package for its former CEO in 2021.
CenterPoint has proposed a $2 billion “resiliency” plan to fortify the power grid against extreme weather, which is inching through the approval process. However, the upgrades would take years to complete, and there are ongoing debates about the cost of the plan and how much of it ratepayers should bear.
About 2.3 million of CenterPoint Energy’s 2.6 million customers in the Houston area lost electricity during the latest storm. Immigrant workers in low-income areas were particularly affected, with many losing their ability to work and buy food due to the outages.
Houston was under a heat advisory Thursday, with high temperatures forecast in the lower to mid-90s and humidity making it feel as much as 10 degrees hotter. CenterPoint is under increasing scrutiny with this being just the latest electricity crisis — in May, a severe storm known as a derecho also caused about 1 million power outages, some of which took six days to restore.
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