CenterPoint Energy issues statement and provides restoration update

CenterPoint Energy issues statement and provides restoration update

Sunday-July-14-2024

​​​Houston - July 14, 2024 - CenterPoint Energy has now restored power to more than 85% of impacted customers, ahead of its prior expectations. This represents more than 1.9 million impacted customers. The company remains on track to reach 90% restored on Monday, July 15. CenterPoint continues to direct its 14,000 crew members to restore electricity to those customers who remain without power.

In addition, the company issued the following statement in response to Governor Abbott's press conference:

Our top priority is restoring power to the remaining impacted customers as safely and quickly as possible. Dedicated restoration crews have continued working around-the-clock through the weekend, restoring power at the fastest rate in the company's history. On Monday, July 15, we expect to have restored power to 90% of all impacted customers. Our restoration crews are now converging on remaining areas with significant structural damage as well as localized outages to get the lights back on for those customers who are without power.

We have heard and understand our customers' frustrations, and we are committed to working together with the State, local government, regulators, and community leaders both to help the Greater Houston area recover from Hurricane Beryl and to improve for the future. We are committed to doing a thorough review of our response to support our customers and our communities, especially when they need us most. We know they are counting on us, and we are committed to being there for them.

CenterPoint's Preparedness Ahead of Hurricane Beryl

The company plans for hurricanes and other extreme weather events year-round. CenterPoint had been tracking Hurricane Beryl and prepping for impact for nine days before it made landfall in Texas early Monday, July 8, as a powerful hurricane with wind gusts of up to 97 miles-per-hour. The company took the following steps, among others, to prepare:

• Despite forecasts that the hurricane would largely miss the company's service territory, CenterPoint secured and readied 3,000 crew members and pre-positioned them safely outside of the projected path of the storm. CenterPoint coordinated with utilities across the state to ensure resources were available across the Texas Gulf Coast region.
• As the forecast trajectory changed, the company quickly called on additional mutual assistance resources to substantially increase crews.
• CenterPoint continues to replenish for material needs year-round. Going into this event the company had 15,000 poles on hand and has used a little over 2,100 poles during restoration. The company has more than 17,000 transformers, but this storm has not required significant transformer replacements.

The company has been investing for years to strengthen the Greater Houston area's resilience to hurricanes and other extreme weather. Over the last five years, CenterPoint has doubled investments in its electric system, including in grid hardening, modernization and resiliency. From 2022 to 2023, the company also increased spending on vegetation management efforts by 32%.

As a result of investment to enhance the resiliency of the transmission system, which is the backbone of CenterPoint's grid, power continued to flow into the Greater Houston area during the storm. This allowed power to be restored more quickly as crews repaired distribution poles and removed over 18,600 trees impacting overhead lines in individual neighborhoods.

Our Response to the Hurricane

The Greater Houston area has not been hit more directly by the "dirty side" of a hurricane since Hurricane Alicia in 1983. The powerful combination of extreme winds with weakened trees and other vegetation caused significant damage to distribution poles, lines and other electrical equipment, and more than 2.2 million CenterPoint Energy customers were impacted before the storm left the company's service area. As Beryl exited the Houston area, CenterPoint crews jumped into action, working in 16-hour shifts to:

• Set up 21 staging sites, the most we have ever set up to support response efforts;
• Assess damage to the system by walking over 8,500 miles of electric lines;
• Remove over 18,600 weakened trees impacting lines, representing over 75% of distribution circuits;
• Repair or replace over 2,100 of over 1.17 million distribution poles; and
• Position mobile generation units at cooling centers, hospitals, senior living facilities, medicine storage facilities and water treatment plants.
  

Within 48 hours, CenterPoint crews had restored nearly 1 million customers. The strong pace of the restoration is a testament to the company's preparation, investments in the system and, most importantly, the efforts of 14,000 dedicated CenterPoint and mutual assistance crew members who have been working long days in challenging conditions to get the power back on.​

CenterPoint's commitments for the future

The company committed to doing a thorough review of its response to support customers and communities. To that end, CenterPoint has already identified immediate areas of focus following this event, including improving communications with customers, launching a new cloud-based outage tracker that customers can rely on as the best source of information, and engaging communities for feedback to drive improvement to future restoration efforts.

In addition to improving communications with customers, CenterPoint intends to continue investing in the resiliency of its electric system. In April, CenterPoint filed a $2.7 billion plan to invest in resiliency focused on system hardening, grid modernization, flood mitigation and vegetation management.

Correcting misinformation

There has been significant misinformation in news and social media regarding the payment of mutual assistance crews. Consistent with industry standards that enable the rapid sharing of resources, CenterPoint's mutual assistance contracts are pre-negotiated, including payment terms. Crews have not and are not being held back due to negotiations on pay. The company reimburses for all costs incurred to provide the assistance, including wages.

CenterPoint's electric customers are encouraged to enroll in Power Alert Service® to receive outage details and community-specific restoration updates as they become available. For information and updates, visit CenterPointEnergy.com/StormCenter and follow @CenterPoint for updates during inclement weather events.

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