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Members of Congress, community leaders, CenterPoint executives to address Hurricane Beryl power issues | Streaming live at 2:30 p.m.
In addition to CenterPoint’s CEO and other executives, a coalition of community leaders and elected officials will also join the news conference.
Michelle Homer, Sammy Turner, Randy Klein
2:15 PM CDT July 18, 2024
2:15 PM CDT July 18, 2024
HOUSTON — A coalition of civic organizations and Houston politicians met with CenterPoint Energy executives on Thursday to discuss the power company’s issues following Hurricane Beryl.
They have scheduled a news conference at 2:30 p.m. to discuss CenterPoint’s response and the need for proactive planning to prevent another power crisis.
KHOU 11 will stream the conference in this story, as well as the KHOU 11 YouTube page, KHOU 11+ and KHOU 11 mobile app.
The storm knocked out power to more than 2.2 million CenterPoint customers when it came ashore early on the morning of July 8. A week later, over a million customers still had no power as temperatures soared. The number was down to around 15,000 customers by Thursday afternoon.
During the massive outages, at least six Houston-area residents died of hyperthermia because they had no power. That number is expected to increase.
Businesses forced to shut down lost millions of dollars and many employees went more than a week without pay because their place of employment didn’t have power.
As KHOU 11 Investigates first reported, CenterPoint didn’t stage out-of-town crews in the Houston area in advance of the hurricane which slowed efforts to bring in outside help with the massive outages.
On Thursday, we expect to hear from CenterPoint Energy CEO Jeff Wells and senior VP Jason Ryan. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep. Al Green, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Texas Legislative Black Caucus Chairman Ron Reynolds.
A community coalition, including Bishop James Dixon of the Houston NAACP, Judson Robinson of HAUL, Johnny Mata of the Greater Houston Justice Coalition, Mary Ramos of LULAC, BishopJohnny Tates, Dr. Sam Gilbert and Bishop John Ogletree also attended the meeting with CenterPoint.
Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to CenterPoint outlining several things he wants the company to do to improve its response to future storms. In the letter, Abbott said he was concerned the company was prioritizing its bottom line over the well-being of Texans by cutting corners. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also announced a special senate committee to investigate the power issues.