AUSTIN, Texas — The chief executive of Houston’s electric utility told lawmakers Monday that the company would lose momentum in its post-Hurricane Beryl changes if he resigned because of the prolonged and deadly power outages that followed the storm that slammed into the Texas coast this month.
“I take personal responsibility for failing to meet our customers’ expectations during Hurricane Beryl,” Jason Wells, CenterPoint Energy’s chief executive, told a panel of state senators at the Texas Capitol. CenterPoint will launch an outage tracker Thursday to help customers prepare for the next storm and will hire a communications director to improve its communications, Wells said.
It’s the first time Texas lawmakers have publicly questioned the head of CenterPoint Energy since the storm made landfall July 8 and knocked out power to nearly 3 million people. Authorities have said at least a dozen Houston-area residents have died from complications related to the heat and loss of power, and have partially attributed at least four other deaths to hyperthermia, when a person’s body temperature rises well above normal.
In total, at least 36 deaths have been attributed to Beryl.
“Our constituents deserve answers,” said Republican Sen. Brandon Creighton, citing some of his constituents who died in the storm.
Wells was called to testify before the special legislative committee that is examining the company’s failure to provide an outage tracking tool in a timely manner and the overall lack of preparedness for the hurricane. Wells said it was “inexcusable” that the company’s outage tracking tool was not deployed in a timely manner.
Republican Sen. Paul Bettencourt, whose district includes Houston, asked Wells what he thought about calls for his resignation from some frustrated community residents. Wells said the company continues to work with city residents in their post-storm efforts.
Gov. Greg Abbott and the Public Utilities Commission have demanded answers from CenterPoint Energy, the city’s largest energy provider, about why the outages lasted so long. In addition to the lawmakers’ investigation, the Public Utilities Commission has launched its own investigation.
The storm damaged power lines and uprooted trees, leaving millions without electricity for days. CenterPoint defended its storm preparedness and said it had deployed about 12,000 additional workers to help restore power.
Last Thursday, Wells apologized to customers at a meeting with the Texas Public Utilities Commission in Austin.
Hurricane Beryl is the latest natural disaster to hit Houston after a powerful storm ravaged the area in May and left nearly a million people without power. In 2021, Texas’ power grid was shut down due to a deadly winter storm that left millions of people across the state frozen in their homes.
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This article has been corrected to reflect that it was Jason Wells, CEO of CenterPoint Energy, not Jason Ryan, who testified at the special Senate committee meeting and that not all of the at least 36 deaths attributed to Beryl were heat-related.
