Photo: Danielle Villasana / Getty Images News / Getty Images
State lawmakers are letting CenterPoint executives know how they feel about the botched response to Hurricane Beryl.
Senators on a special committee formed by Lt. Governor Dan Patrick wanted to know how more than 2 million people lose power after this Category 1 storm, and why it took so long for it to come back on?
This comes in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl which left more than 2 million CenterPoint customers without power. At least 38 people died, with 15 of those deaths being connected to heat and the long term power outages in the aftermath of the storm
"(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 during the hearing 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.
And then on Sunday, one day before this hearing, they sent a letter to customers promising to do better.