Half a million Houston-area homes and businesses still won’t have power into next week, utility says (2024)

By JUAN A. LOZANO and NADIA LATHAN Associated Press

Published: Jul. 11, 2024 at 11:05 AM CDT|Updated: Jul. 11, 2024 at 10:33 PM CDT

HOUSTON (AP) — About half a million Houston-area homes and businesses will still be without electricity next week, the city’s largest utility said Thursday, stoking the frustration of hot and weary residents and leading a top state official to call the pace of recovery from Hurricane Beryl “not acceptable.”

Jason Ryan, executive vice president of CenterPoint Energy, said power has been restored to more than 1 million homes and businesses since Beryl made landfall in Texas on Monday. And the company expects to get hundreds of thousands of more customers back online by Sunday. But many more will wait much longer.

“We know that we still have a lot of work to do,” Ryan said during a meeting of the Texas Public Utility Commission, the state’s utility regulation agency. “We will not stop the work until it is done.”

Ryan said that the prolonged outages into next week would be concentrated along the Gulf Coast, close to where Beryl came ashore.

During a news conference Thursday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pushed CenterPoint to work faster to relieve residents who have been without power for days and have been forced to seek air conditioning in community cooling centers and meals from food and water distribution points.

Compounding their discomfort was a new band of rainstorms that swept through the Houston area Thursday. The rain provided brief relief from the heat before temperatures were expected to creep back above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) over the weekend.

“Folks, that is not acceptable,” that half a million customers could still be without power a week after the storm, said Patrick, who is acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is in Asia on an economic development trip.

Patrick and Abbott have both promised that the state will investigate the storm response. Texas has dealt with several major storms over the past two decades.

“We are always going to have big storms in this area. ... We have to be sure they were prepared as they should have been,” Patrick said. “It’s a terrible situation for people who are in this heat.”

Patrick and Abbott also sparred with the White House over the timing of requests for federal declarations for the area, whether they would delay help for storm cleanup and other emergency expenses.

The Category 1 hurricane — the weakest type — knocked out power to around 2.7 million customers after it made landfall, according to PowerOutage.us.

Residents have been frustrated that such a relatively weak storm could cause such disruption at the height of summer.

Some have criticized the utility and state and city officials as not ready for the storm, the slow restoration process, and that CenterPoint’s online map has been woefully inaccurate, sometimes showing entire neighborhoods as restored when they were still without power.

The company acknowledged that most of the 12,000 workers it brought in to help the recovery were not in the Houston area when the storm arrived. Initial forecasts had the storm blowing ashore much farther south along the Gulf Coast, near the Texas-Mexico border, before it headed toward Houston.

Ryan said the vast majority of outages were caused by falling trees and tree limbs, and workers had to conduct damage surveys on more than 8,500 miles of power lines.

Beryl has been blamed for at least nine U.S. deaths and 11 in the Caribbean.

The storm’s lingering impact for many in Texas, however, was the wallop to the power supply that left much of the nation’s fourth-largest city sweltering.

Mallary Cohee said her duplex in New Caney, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Houston, has been without power since Monday. She said her “little country neighborhood” is a “hot mess” of downed trees, so she’s staying at a Houston hotel.

Cohee said she initially felt she could withstand the lack of air conditioning because she she managed to get by without it in summer while serving a two-year prison sentence.

“I thought, ‘I can do this. I can ride it. If I can do time with no heat, no AC in there, I could possibly make it,’” Cohee said. “But it’s a whole different ballgame when you don’t even have a fan to plug in.”

Clean water was also becoming an issue. More than 160 boil water notices were in effect across the area, and more than 100 wastewater treatment plants were offline Thursday, said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

The Texas Hospital Association said a “vast majority” of hospitals in the area are dealing with some kind of issue caused by Beryl, including water and wind damage, power and internet connection problems, staffing shortages or transportation problems.

Carrie Kroll, the association’s vice president of advocacy, public policy and political strategy, said hospitals are getting an “extremely high” number of people coming to emergency departments with symptoms of heat stroke and injuries from cleaning up debris.

By Wednesday night, hospitals had already sent more than 100 patients who couldn’t be released to homes with no power to a Houston sports and event complex with an area set up to hold up to 250, Office of Emergency Management spokesman Brent Taylor said.

___

Lathan, who reported from Austin, Texas, is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Half a million Houston-area homes and businesses still won’t have power into next week, utility says (2024)

FAQs

Why does Texas keep having power outages? ›

Such power outages are likely to continue. That's because the massive network of equipment that moves electricity across the state and then to individual Texas homes and businesses is unprepared for the severe weather expected in years ahead, experts say.

What happens to your business when there is no power supply? ›

Any files you were working on could be lost or become corrupted, and lost or damaged files can create additional challenges in business operation, such as inventory management. If power outages occur frequently, they can damage your hard drive and reduce its lifespan.

What is the largest cause of power outages? ›

1. Storms: Wind, heat, ice and snow are the most common causes of widespread power outages. 2. Trees: During high winds, or trimming by an untrained professional, limbs can come into contact with power lines and cause interruptions.

Where does Houston gets its electricity? ›

Houston: the energy capital

Almost 100 of those are solar-related, 30 are wind-related and more than 60 are related to energy technology. Houston refineries process 2.6 million barrels of crude oil. Port Houston is the “largest petrochemical manufacturing complex in the Americas.

What is the issue with the Texas power grid? ›

There was not only insufficient power generation capacity online, but also insufficient natural gas supply to the power plants. The failure of some gas distribution infrastructure, which had not been adequately winterized, resulted in exceedingly high prices for natural gas.

Why couldn t Texas get power from other states? ›

Texas is the lone state in the contiguous United States with its own power grid. Embracing the go-it-alone spirit of the Lone Star flag, Texas power companies chose to keep their operations within the state's borders largely to avoid federal regulation.

What happens if your power supply is not sufficient? ›

These weak power supplies leave the components of your devices without the necessary power to perform, causing malfunctions and failures across the board. Failures due to low power have a knock-on effect of causing system crashes, data losses, and, most importantly, damage to your devices.

What will happen if there is no electrical supply? ›

Step 1: If electricity didn't exist, all electronic devices would be nonfunctional, and the world would have to rely on primitive, mechanical controls . Factories, houses, and farms would have to give up modern amenities like electric lights, irons, toasters, and water pumps .

Which state has the most power outages? ›

With the most annual power outages, Maine is surely left in the dark. The Pine Tree State tops the list with an average of 4.35 power outages every year, a stark increase above the national average of 1.62 per year.

Which country has the most power outages? ›

Papua New Guinea has more than 500 power cuts per year - the highest of any country. Whether it is a brief cut in power or a nationwide blackout, power outages can be highly inconvenient for businesses.

What was the worst blackout in the United States? ›

August 14 and 15, 2003 - The northeastern U.S. and southern Canada suffered the worst power blackout in history. Areas affected extended from New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey west to Michigan, and from Ohio north to Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario. Approximately 50 million customers were impacted.

Who owns the power grid in Houston? ›

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, is the state's electric grid operator. It acts as traffic control – ERCOT doesn't own power plants or power lines, but it does direct where electricity goes. It makes sure electricity supply matches demand at all times.

Who is the number one energy provider in Texas? ›

Compare Texas Electricity Companies (2024) Based on our in-depth analysis and comprehensive rating system, we've identified TXU Energy and Gexa Energy as the top Texas electricity companies. Aniket Bhor is a writer and solar engineer with a decade of industry experience.

What is Texas largest source of electricity? ›

natural gas

Why has electricity gone up so much in Texas? ›

Paying for capacity means there is more of a cushion if there's a cold snap or heat wave. Hirs compared it to funding the fire department. Texas' deregulated energy market contributes to the state's volatile electricity prices, according to Ed Hirs, energy fellow at the University of Houston.

What state has the most power outages? ›

Number of major blackouts by select state in the United States 2000-2023. Between 2000 and 2023, Texas was the leading U.S. state for major power outages, with almost 264 blackouts in the 23-year period. California followed, with 238 major power outages throughout the period under consideration.

Why does Texas have so much power? ›

Texas has 32 petroleum refineries (the most of any state), which can process more than 5.9 million barrels of crude oil per day (32 percent of U.S. refining capacity). Texas produces about 26 percent of all U.S. wind-powered electricity generation, the most of any state.

Why does power go out so often? ›

However, the three most common causes are natural causes, human error, and overload. Basically, any interruption between power generation and the supply of electricity to homes can cause a power outage. It can stem from inclement weather conditions, human error, equipment failure, and even animal interference.

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Annamae Dooley

Last Updated:

Views: 5355

Rating: 4.4 / 5 (65 voted)

Reviews: 80% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Annamae Dooley

Birthday: 2001-07-26

Address: 9687 Tambra Meadow, Bradleyhaven, TN 53219

Phone: +9316045904039

Job: Future Coordinator

Hobby: Archery, Couponing, Poi, Kite flying, Knitting, Rappelling, Baseball

Introduction: My name is Annamae Dooley, I am a witty, quaint, lovely, clever, rich, sparkling, powerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.