AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) — State lawmakers finally got their turn to grill CenterPoint Energy executives in a Texas Senate committee on Monday about their response to Hurricane Beryl.
The hearing comes a week after the company promised to do better while being questioned by Texas Utility Regulators.
The committee will try to get to the bottom of why CenterPoint wasn’t as prepared as it should have been and will likely take a critical look at the plan CenterPoint has laid out to see if they think it’s good enough.
RELATED: Energy expert expresses doubts about CenterPoint Energy’s plan to improve: ‘Not super optimistic’
Energy expert Doug Lewin joined ABC13 to analyze CenterPoint’s action plan and discuss other possibilities to keep the power on.
During Monday morning’s hearing, the senators’ overall message was that what happened with the power after Hurricane Beryl could not be tolerated.
They said they were trying to answer two questions: Why did more than 2 million people lose power after this Category 1 storm, and why did it take so long for it to come back on?
The storm death toll is now up to 38 in our area. Officials say 14 of those people died specifically because of the power outage.
Lawmakers hope to better understand what regulations or legislation can be implemented after Monday’s meeting so this doesn’t happen again.
“(What) makes my blood boil is the fact that we are having to have a hearing to hear about a whole bunch of people who did their job right, but the biggest multi-billion dollar corporation, we’re having to tell them how to do your job,” Sen. Paul Bettencourt said Monday. “And that is not something I enjoy doing, but we are going to do it today because we have to. Because the people who died deserve an answer. The people who had their power off deserve an answer, and more importantly, the future of this region is based upon having access to power.”
Last week, in front of the Public Utility Commission, CenterPoint executives apologized and laid out a plan for improvement, promising a new outage tracker by Aug. 1, better communication, and better vegetation management.
SEE RELATED: CenterPoint apologizes and proposes action plan to work efficiently following botched Beryl response
“Y’all have to do better. The customers deserve better and we all are giving you a return that expects better,” Jimmy Glotfelty with the Public Utility Commission said.
“While we cannot erase the frustrations and difficulties so many of our customers endured, I and my entire leadership team will not make excuses,” CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells said.
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