More than 140,000 homes and businesses in Houston still without
power more than a week after Hurricane Barrel hit Southeast
Texas.
And most of those are customers of Center Point Energy.
State leaders are now ramping up pressure on that company
to get things fixed.
TCS here with the latest.
Good morning. Good morning. Most of the two million customers
who initially lost power in the hurricane have had service
restored.
But Governor Greg Abbott says he's not impressed with Center
Point's response to Barrel after the track of the storm
quickly change.
The governor called on Center Point to give his office
a detailed plan to explain how it plans to address
future natural disasters.
It must be submitted by July 31st.
If it is revealed that Center Point is not capable
of doing its job,
the governor says the size of the company's territory would
be reduced.
The point is this whenever a tropical storm comes in
or near the Gulf.
All of us, state, local and other entities have a
responsibility to get ready immediately.
It is hurricane season in the state of Texas.
That means that everybody who lives on or near the
coast,
whether you are an individual,
whether you're a government, whether you are a power provider,
everyone has a duty to be prepared to respond to
wherever that storm lands.
If Center Point does not comply,
Abbott says he will issue an executive order that could
cost be costly for the power company.
Now, Centerpoint says it expects to restore power to 98%
of the people who lost power from the storm by
tomorrow.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas is launching an investigation
into Center Point over the prolonged outages.
The chair of the agency says that should move quickly.
And several restaurants in the Houston and Galveston area are
now suing Center Point over revenue losses from the last
several days.
For good day I'm TCM wusinga.