HOUSTON – A father and husband was drugged while out drinking with his wife at a Montrose bar.
Daniel and Melissa Zuniga were out at their favorite local watering hole, Rudyard’s, along Waugh Drive in Montrose. It’s a bar the high school sweethearts have been visiting for more than two decades.
It started out as just that. After drinking, he walked up to the bar to close out their tab while Melissa sat at their table and waited.
“I had my drink right here in front of me,” she said. “And then I grabbed it, stirred it, drank it, set it down.”
While sitting and texting her daughter, a random man walked up and sat down next to her. When she set her drink down on the table, the man said, “Hi.”
“I just looked up at him and said, ‘Hello’,” Melissa said. “Then he told me, ‘It looks like you’re stuck with me tonight.’ I was like, whatever. It kind of was, it was creepy. So, I grabbed my drink and I told him, ‘I’m going to call my husband.’”
What’s even creepier: the man walked right by her husband who was at the bar waiting to close out their tab.
Security camera video obtained by KPRC 2 shows the man, who Melissa pointed out.
But to this point, they thought this was a run-in with a weirdo.
Still, Melissa just wanted to go home and leave that drink behind.
“I was like, ‘Well, I didn’t want to waste $8.’ So, I grabbed the drink, and I just swung it. I took a big swig,” Daniel said.
By the time they walked out of the bar, Daniel was starting to fall apart. By the time they got to their home in the Energy Corridor, Daniel was a mess.
“My mom had texted me upstairs, and she’s like, ‘Can you please come help me get your dad from the car?’” said their daughter, Natalia. “We had to drag him in. He was crawling on the floor.”
Daniel was violent, cussing and unrecognizable.
“We thought he had just been very drunk, because we’d never seen him like this,” Natalia said.
When Daniel woke up, he didn’t remember a thing.
The next day he took an over-the-counter drug test, which lit up like a Christmas tree for drugs he’s never taken before.
The only plausible reason they could come up with is Daniel was roofied. But the drugs weren’t meant for him.
“It wasn’t even for me,” he said. “He wanted to hurt my wife, and that’s even more infuriating.”
The family filed a report with the Houston Police Department. In the meantime, they’ve been working with the owner of Rudyard’s. He wasn’t able to speak on camera, but he wants to help in every way possible.
He told KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding that this kind of person isn’t welcome at their bar.
“This shouldn’t end your life. You just got to be careful,” Daniel said.
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A toddler has died after being found unresponsive in a neighbor’s pool in what authorities believe was a tragic accident.
The incident occurred early Saturday evening on the 3400 block of Brackenfern Road in the Katy area. Harris County deputies determined that a male toddler was found unconscious in the pool of his family’s next-door neighbor.
There was a family gathering at the toddler’s family’s residence, and deputies believe the child found an opening in a fence to gain access to the neighbor’s pool. After being found unresponsive, the toddler was rushed to a hospital in critical condition.
Just over two hours after his initial report, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez confirmed that the child had died on X.
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According to Billboard Magazine, the fastest growing music genre in the U.S. is Latin music. And although much of that can be attributed to reggaeton artists such as Bad Bunny and Karol G, the driving forces behind this growth are Regional Mexican and corrido artists such as Peso Pluma and Fuerza Regida. So it was no surprise that Peso’s concert at Toyota Center on Friday night hosted a capacity crowd, all eager to see one of music’s hottest young stars in action.
Classical music filled the arena as the house lights dimmed. It was a scene that would be recreated several times before the night ended, creating a dark and moody environment as the concert was divided into four acts plus a finale. The familiar strings and vocals of “O Fortuna” sounded over the stage, along with a voiceover proclaiming that “an antihero is among us.”
The tracks “La Patrulla” and “La Durango” kicked off the setlist, with Peso elevated from beneath the stage on a black and gold throne, surrounded by his banda. He hurt his foot at a show last month, and has continued to tour wearing a boot, walking with crutches, and dancing while hopping on one leg. His throne would serve as his main supporting act all night, never far from his side.
Billboard Magazine claims that the fastest growing music genre in the U.S. is Latin, driven by Regional Mexican artists such as Peso Pluma.
Photo by Sean Thomas
It didn’t take long before hearing one of Peso’s most viral hits, as the horn section for “AMG” caused a loud cheer throughout the Toyota Center. Accompanied by the requinto of the bajo sexto, Peso spit out his lyrics with staccato brevity and confidence. His voice is not that of a crooner or smooth balladeer, but rather a sharp vocal wordsmith that resonates above the bold musical compositions.
Black was the tone for the outfits of everyone on stage, from Peso to his band and dancers. The fist few songs were performed as he wore a black, sparkled ski mask. When he finally removed it, Peso smiled wide and made sure the audience felt seen. It is a handsome, somewhat devious smile, fitting for the tall, lanky güerito from Zapopan, Jalisco. “Rubicon” marked the end of Act 1.
Act 2 was more relaxed than the intro, with tracks such as “Luna,” Reloj” and “Bye” fully pulling Peso into his sad boy era. Singing about running the streets of Jalisco and Sinaloa in a Jeep or Mercedes then shifting into a song of heartbreak is part of Peso’s mystique, and is definitely one of the reasons his fans love him. The stage was illuminated from below and flickered as Peso and his crew moved in unison with the mood of the tracks. The audience showed appreciation with chants of “Peso! Peso! Peso!” The popular track “Ella Baila Sola” marked the end of this section of the show.
Singing about running the streets of Jalisco and Sinaloa then shifting into a song of heartbreak is part of Peso Pluma’s mystique, one that was on full display at Toyota Center.
Photo by Sean Thomas
Act 3 was for the club, with “QLONA” and “La Bebe – Remix” leaning more onto the dembo and reggaeton Peso Pluma, which was just fine for his fans who were busy dancing in the aisles across the arena. Peso was surrounded by a troupe of talented dancers, both female and male, who worked hard to keep the energy up even as Peso hobbled along on one leg. If the show was this good with Peso in a boot, imagine how crazy his act must be when he is back at 100 percent?!
Act 4 included a few crowd favorites, with “Hollywood” showcasing Peso’s acoustic guitar capabilities, followed by “PRC,” “La People 1 & 2,” “El Gavilan 1 & 2,” and “Rosa Pastel.” It was during this section that Peso made it clear that he is the evolution of the Mexican corridos heritage, showcasing artists such as Chalino Sanchez, Ramon Ayala, Los Cadetes de Linares, Joan Sebastian, Jenni Rivera, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, and Valentin Elizalde on the video board before showing the new generation of Gerardo Ortiz, Natanael Cano, Eslabon Armado, Luis R. Conriquez, Junior H, and himself.
The final act included a few of my personal favorites, with “El Azul” and “Lady Gaga” sounding out before the night came to a close. “Muchas gracias, Houston!” yelled Peso as he requested everyone to turn on their cell phone lights. The dancers surrounded peso with bright red flares in their hands, and two dancers waved flame throwers back and forth with the music. “Vino Tinto” and “TEKA” ended the evening, and I left the arena feeling excited for the future of Latin music.
HOUSTON – People in the Almeda Plaza neighborhood say they don’t want to hear apologies and promises from CenterPoint Energy. They say actions speak louder than words.
Since 86-year-old Julius Gordon Jr. got his power back on the day after our original story with him aired following hurricane beryl, its already gone out twice again. Once three days after it was restored, and then again today.
“I thought, is this retaliation?” Gordon asked jokingly. “let’s cut off Gordon’s electricity because he’s got a big mouth. Hey, but we have to cut off the other people too. That’s alright cut theirs off too, cut all 700 of them off.”
He makes fun of the situation to keep spirits high, but he knows it’s really no laughing matter.
“Seriously, it’s not a joke anymore,” he said.
He’s already had to throw away medicine that requires constant refrigeration and sometimes when there’s an outage, he has to take a device to the hospital to reconfigure it with the implanted heart monitor it correlates with.
“They can do better. They got to do better,” Gordon said.
Doing better is what CenterPoint executives promised during a recent hearing in front of the Public Utility Commission where one of the promises was to ensure vegetation surrounding power lines is better maintained.
“We’ve begun to use aerial resources whether they are helicopter, drone,” CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells said.
CenterPoint officials also said other changes are on the way, including bettering customer service.
“Looking at ways for customers to report and send photos and damage so that we can prioritize lines down and other safety related items that come up,” Wells said.
Both Gordon and his daughter, Denise Furlough listened to CenterPoint’s apologies and commitments to build the most resilient costal grid anywhere in the country. Both of them are skeptical.
“I will believe it when I see it. This is Houston. We have had hurricanes my whole life and I won’t even mention my age. They knew this last year, the year before,” Furlough said.
“Talk is cheap, and when you don’t follow up on your talk, it’s expensive to the customers,” Gordon said.
Gordon says he still won’t walk around his house without his flashlight even though his lights are back on now. Meanwhile, CenterPoint saying they plan to streamline the changes starting this hurricane season and continue to improve on preparations for future seasons.
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HOUSTON – Patrick Brown told KPRC 2 reporter Corley Peel he was asleep at his mother’s house when investigators showed up around 4:00 a.m. Wednesday.
In the surveillance video at the home, you can hear deputies asking Brown to walk out with his hands up before they took him into custody.
Brown is among 53 people indicted in connection to the bail bond scheme involving the Houston bonding company, AABLE Bonds. The company has been under investigation for years and is accused falsifying financial reports before submitting them to government and insurance agencies to get bonds for jailed defendants.
Sources say some of those defendants committed more crimes after bonding out. Many of those cases involve violent offenders, according to records.
After his federal court hearing on Thursday, Brown told Corley that he was not aware the bonding company was accused or involved in suspicious activity.
Brown’s mother, Yvette, said her son told her about AABLE Bonds while he was in jail roughly two years ago.
“He called and said, ‘We have a bail bond and guaranteed to get me out.’ His bond was so high. So, we called the people, and they guaranteed to get my son out. I was desperately trying to get my child out of jail,” Yvette said.
Brown was released from jail. He said had a payment plan with the bond company.
“I know how the bond people work,” Brown said. “If you bring them 19 or 20 thousand [dollars], you’ve got to pay the payment plan. So, that’s what I did. I got out, and I was two months out, paying payments to them.”
His brother, Michael Ford and his uncle, Cornelius Brown, were also arrested in this case. They are accused of wire fraud by falsifying paystubs that were sent electronically. Despite the investigation, Brown thinks high of AABLE bonds.
“I’m not downing that bonding company,” Brown said. “That’s a good bonding company because they help a bunch of people out. They should have handled their paperwork right.”
Majority of the people who were in court on Thursday were released, including Brown. They are expected to have a bond hearing on Tuesday.
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HOUSTON – Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers arrested 37 people in Harris County Wednesday morning in a ‘massive operation’ after a two-year long ‘colossal’ bail bond fraud investigation, according to law enforcement personnel with direct knowledge of the case.
The scheme allowed violent criminals who normally wouldn’t have qualified for bonds to get back out on the streets with relative ease
The arrests came following the federal indictment of 53 individuals, law enforcement officials said. They’re accused of wire fraud and conspiracy after the investigation exposed alleged fraud within the bail bond industry involving Harris County suspects tied to several recent high-profile cases.
Pamela Yoder (Left), Tawana Jones (Center), and Amir Khan (Right) (U.S. Attorney’s Office)
Of those indicted, 50 are already in custody and three are wanted, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office: Tawana Jones, 44, of Houston; Pamela Yoder, 60, of Detroit, Michigan; and Amir Khan, 60, of Pakistan.
Those charged are described by law enforcement as employees of the bail company or individuals who obtained fraudulent bonds. The arrest operation started before sunrise across multiple locations and the suspects were later processed at NRG on Wednesday. Federal agents received help from the Houston Police Department, Harris County Sheriff’s deputies, U.S. Marshals, and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers. FBI tactical teams from New Orleans and San Antonio were also involved.
The alleged fraud scheme allowed individuals charged in state cases to falsify financial reports related to bail bonds and accused individuals qualified for bonds they normally wouldn’t have, which meant they got released back onto the streets, officials said..
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has confirmed the alleged scheme involved AABLE Bonds, where the FBI executed a search warrant in June 2022.
According to the indictment, employees of AABLE Bonds conspired with others to falsify and obtain falsified co-signer financial reports. This was allegedly done to qualify individuals charged with criminal offenses who would not otherwise qualify for what was necessary to meet the terms of their bond.
“This investigation exposing alleged fraud within the bail bond industry is the first of its kind and the result of a 24-month long FBI Houston-led operation into a colossal bail bond scheme operating out of Harris County,” said FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams in a statement. “By allegedly falsifying financial reports related to bail bonds, the accused individuals secured their release back onto the streets of our community through an illicit revolving door within the bond system.”
“Utilizing the bail bond system in a fraudulent manner to allow the release of criminals is unacceptable. We are proud to have joined with our local, state and federal partners in getting these individuals off the streets,” said Acting Houston Police Chief Larry J. Satterwhite in a statement.
“Our crime analysts proactively launched this investigation to target violent offenders and those that exploit our system. These actions undermine the legal process and pose a threat to public safety. We are committed to working diligently with our partners to root out corruption and ensure that those who engage in such fraudulent activities are held accountable,” said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez in a statement. “Our priority remains the safety and security of Harris County residents, and we will continue to take action against those who seek to be involved in criminal activity.”
In 2022, the CEO Sheba Muharib was questioned about her business practices by the Harris County Bail Bond Board but ultimately her license was renewed. She is now one of the defendants indicted for allegedly affecting persons engaged in the business of insurance.
Investigators started with a focus on a group of violent criminals and an analysis of their jail phone calls, law enforcement officials said, but that uncovered “massive bail bond fraud going on” and the case kept getting bigger, which is when the Harris County Sheriff’s Office requested help from the FBI.
The indictment alleges 11 individuals of the 53 are charged in Harris County with criminal offenses who obtained bonds based on falsified documents.
How did the scheme operate?
According to officials, after an individual got arrested, they’d call an employee at the bonding company from jail and the employee would assess if the defendant could be trusted. The company would then provide them co-signers if they didn’t have any. If they did have co-signers, a lot of times those individuals didn’t have jobs, so the employee at the company would provide false financial documents to the co-signers.
Eventually, co-signers would come in to sign paperwork with false check stubs, officials said, then submit paperwork to the insurance company which backed the company’s surety bonds. Believing those documents to be true, the bonds would be approved, and the defendant would be let out of jail fraudulently on a bond they shouldn’t have obtained because the co-signers didn’t have proper income to back the bond, law enforcement officials said.
Employees of AABLE Bonds, including Mary Brown, 29, and Oscar Wattell, 34, both of Houston, allegedly recruited the straw co-signers.
Sheba Muharib, 58, Missouri City, is charged with allegedly affecting persons engaged in the business of insurance. Muharib allegedly knew Wattell had a criminal felony conviction involving dishonesty while engaging in the business of insurance.
If convicted, each face up to 20 years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine for the wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges. Muharib could receive up to five years in prison and a $250,000 possible fine upon conviction.
KPRC 2 photojournalist Cesar Martinez captured one of the arrests related to the enforcement action in the 6700 block of Sands Point Drive.
The suspects
Below is a list of all those indicted in connection to the scheme.
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Michael Horton, Bryce Newberry, Christian Terry, Cesar Martinez
The former Houston city manager at the center of a contract corruption scandal exposed by KPRC 2′s Amy Davis is facing a new felony charge in the case.
Patrece Lee is now charged with engaging in organized criminal activity. She was already in jail on $460,000 bond charges including abuse of official capacity and four counts of bribery. Her bond has not been set on the new charge as of Tuesday night.
Ed McClees, former chief of the organized crime section at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, explained the new charge.
“There has to be underlying crimes that they are alleging. And essentially what the law says is you take these underlying crimes, crimes being plural, not just one of them, but it is a group that is working together to do certain crimes,” he said. “It kind of ups the ante. It bumps you up a degree in punishment, so a case that may have been a second degree becomes a first degree, you know, why do degrees matter? They matter because that is what dictates the punishment range.”
Based on his analysis of the new court paperwork obtained by KPRC 2 late Tuesday, Lee will now face 15 years up to life in prison without the possibility of probation if found guilty, which is an increase from what she would have faced.
“Prosecutors and police officers like to see engaging in organized criminal activity cases because it widens or it expands the punishment that’s available. And from a prosecution standpoint, in some cases, it can widen the net of evidence that becomes admissible at trial,” McClees said.
As for the timing of the new charge being tacked on, he said it may be because prosecutors got new information, or they are trying to punish what’s alleged more aggressively, or sometimes it’s a strategic decision to influence a bond if they believe a judge may be inclined to lower it.
Lee has a hearing scheduled for Thursday when bond reduction could be discussed. Her attorney has not responded to KPRC 2′s request for comment on this latest development.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has not provided additional details on the new charge, but a spokesperson said as of Tuesday evening, no additional defendants have been named.
A woman has been detained after two people were shot at an apartment complex in southeast Houston.
The shooting occurred Friday afternoon at the Zollie Scales Manor Apartments near the South Lawn neighborhood. Authorities believe it was a drive-by shooting, and the victims were shot in two separate areas of the complex. It’s unclear if the victims knew the shooter.
One of the victims, a 16-year-old boy, died at the scene. The other, a 19-year-old male, was driven to a fire station in a private vehicle. From there, he was rushed to a nearby hospital. He is currently in surgery, but officials expect he will survive.
A woman has been detained by Houston police regarding the incident. Police are also looking for a light-colored sedan that may have been involved.
This is a developing story. We’ll provide updates when we have more information.
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
The CrowdStrike software bug that crashed Microsoft operating systems and caused the largest IT outage in history caused disruptions at U.S. and global ports, with highly complex air freight systems suffering the heaviest hit, according to logistics experts, as global airlines grounded flights.
“Planes and cargo are not where they are supposed to be and it will take days or even weeks to fully resolve,” Niall van de Wouw, chief air freight officer at supply chain consulting firm Xeneta, said in a statement shared with CNBC. “This is a reminder of how vulnerable our ocean and air supply chains are to IT failure.”
Thousands of flights were grounded or delayed at the world’s largest air freight hubs in Europe, Asia and North America.
The new issue for the global supply chain comes amid a rise in global demand, with shipments up 13% year-over-year in June. Air freight supply has increased, but only by 3% year-on-year, already causing higher costs for shippers due to the limited capacity, according to Xeneta. “Shippers already had concerns about air freight capacity due to huge increases in demand in 2024, driven largely by the extraordinary growth in e-commerce goods being exported from China to Europe and the U.S.,” van de Wouw said. “Available capacity in the market is already limited so airlines are going to struggle to move cargo tomorrow that should have been moved today.
Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, told CNBC on Friday morning that what the government is watching for over the course of the day, as the issue has been identified, is “the kind of ripple or cascade effects as they get everything back in their networks back to normal.”
“These systems, these flights, they run so tightly, so back to back that even after a root cause has been addressed you can still feel those impacts throughout the day,” Buttigieg said.
He said the FAA’s operational systems, like air traffic control or most systems within the U.S. Department of Transportation, as well as major urban transit systems, such as New York City’s MTA, were operating though there could be “spot” issues throughout the day. But “as far as the airlines themselves we are going to definitely be expecting more there,” he said.
FedEx said in a statement that it has activated contingency plans, but added that “potential delays are possible for package deliveries” expected Friday.
UPS said in a statement that computer systems in the U.S. and Europe were affected, but its airline continues to operate effectively, and drivers are on the roads delivering for customers. “We are continuing to work to resolve all issues as quickly as possible; there may be some service delays,” UPS stated.
Ports, freight rails, report some issues, but normal operations
Most rails and ports were faring better after some early morning disruptions.
Only one major U.S. freight railroad reported issues related to the IT outage, with Union Pacific confirming in an email to CNBC that it had varying levels of impact across its network.
“Our backup protocols enable us to communicate with our teams and dispatchers. We are doing everything possible to keep freight moving, but there have been some processing delays in customer shipments as we address targeted areas impacted on our network. We will continue to keep our stakeholders updated as we address the outage over the next 24 hours,” Union Pacific said in the emailed statement.
Other major freight operators, including CSX, Norfolk Southern and BNSF, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway said their operations are not currently affected.
Buttigieg said that at the ports, small issues can turn into a big issue, noting that even with ships and cranes operational, gates were affected, which meant the trucks couldn’t come in or out, which led to delays at certain ports, but they are “up and running and open for business today,” he added.
The Port of Houston, the fifth-largest port in the U.S., said it experienced “major system outages” overnight, but said that all of its systems are now up and running with “minimal delay to operations.”
The Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest port, confirmed to CNBC that one of its terminals, APM Terminals, was down temporarily, but came back up in the early morning. In an email to clients, APM, a subsidiary of Maersk, notified trucking clients that the port was “able to recover rather quickly,” and it restarted operations around 2 a.m. Any drivers not able to complete their pickups were told to contact the company’s import group so they could secure a new appointment to have a demurrage waiver for those containers.
Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, said there were minimal impacts to some of its terminals, but systems are up or in the process of being restored.
The Port of New York and New Jersey reported a delay in the opening of two terminals, but within a few hours, the terminals were back up and running.
“The Port Authority has been working closely with impacted terminal operators since the overnight hours, assisting in their recovery while also communicating updates through a multitude of channels to the port’s vast community of stakeholders,” said Bethann Rooney, port director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. She said the port was able to initiate “a quick and efficient response to get cargo moving again.”
All marine terminals were open by 8 a.m. The Port Authority agency was not impacted by the outage.
Not all ports use systems that incorporate CrowdStrike software, with the Port of Savannah and the Port of Virginia both reporting “normal operations.”
Emily Stausbøll, Xeneta senior shipping analyst, told CNBC that the IT outage has the potential to cause significant disruption at ports if ships are prevented from offloading and loading containers, and that can cascade through the supply chain.
“There are also knock-on impacts across inland supply chains if truck and rail services are unable to pick up and drop off cargo at the port,” Stausbøll said.
She noted that In May, Charleston Port on the U.S. East Coast shut for two days due to a software failure, which resulted in a port congestion increase of 200%. “Port congestion has been a major problem during 2024. While it is now easing, there is no slack in the system and any disruption will push the needle back into the red,” she said.
Maritime intelligence company Kpler told CNBC early indications showed the global IT outage affecting operations at global ports including Poland’s Gdansk, and Dover, Felixstowe and Liverpool in the U.K.
Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, informed customers on its website of possible disruptions, but In an email to CNBC, a port spokesman said critical port operations of the Harbour Master Division and nautical service providers remain operational. “However, some companies in the port, including a container terminal, are experiencing issues due to the disruption and have adjusted their processes. They are working on a solution.”
Matt Wright, senior freight analyst at Kpler, said the outage could lead to some delays at the affected ports, but with Microsoft and Crowdstrike reporting a fix being implemented, resumption of normal operations later today would mean it is unlikely to cause any significant backlog.
HOUSTON – When disaster strikes, the first place many people go is to a church.
In Sunnyside, that’s exactly what hundreds did in the days after Hurricane Beryl left well over two million Houstonians in the dark amid triple-digit heat index temperatures.
At the First Missionary Baptist Church in Sunnyside, they were welcomed with open arms. However, it comes at a cost for the congregation that now has to face a forecasted electric bill nearly 10 times their typical bill.
For seven days following Beryl stranding many in Houston’s heat, the church along Briscoe Street in Sunnyside became an outlet to help the local community survive—literally.
They offered a space to cool down, outlets to charge your phone and keep medical equipment running and a hot meal.
“God has never left me behind and I believe that taking care of his people, I think God is smiling on what we did,” said Pastor Henry Price II.
Pastor Henry Price II of the First Missionary Baptist Church in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Houston, Texas on July 18, 2024. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)
Over the course of the seven days, the church was open to residents 24/7. Hundreds of people took advantage of the lifeline tucked away in their neighborhood.
“The Lord left the lights on here and everybody else lights was off,” Pastor Price said. “It was my duty to invite everybody into the Lord’s house.”
It’s almost a miracle that the church never lost power while it was surrounded by power outages. The pastor taking that as a sign to open up and allow his community inside, whether it be for a few minutes or a few days.
“People were saying you’re going to sleep in a sanctuary,” Price said. “Well, that’s what it is, a sanctuary. And so, we had people sleeping all on the pews, wherever they could fit in. During the storm that was doing, portable hemodialysis. I had people here. That was plugged up to heart monitors and all of that stuff.”
As you could imagine, keeping the lights on, the AC cranked cold and offering everyone a space to charge up ran up their electricity bill quickly.
“Our monthly utility bill is $850,” the pastor told KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding. “We’re looking for the bill to be up around $8,000 or $9,000 for this month.”
That’s roughly ten times their normal amount. It’s a big check that the pastor will have to find some way to write.
“I’m sure that the Lord will make a way,” Price said.
This isn’t just a one-off thing for this church helping the community.
Every single month, they hand out hundreds of boxes of food from the food bank to help people that need it most. Giving them A/C and power is just another example of how they help the Sunnyside community.
“When you’re doing it and the people in need, that’s all that matters,” Price said.
That big power bill still lingers over his head though.
After making some calls, it turns out FEMA does help churches that help others during disasters.
It’s help like this that will make it easier for a small church like First Missionary Baptist Church to weather a storm like Beryl.
But Pastor Price has faith no matter what they’ll make it through to sunnier days.
“We’ve been in this situation before. You know, and if the Lord did it before, he’ll do it again. I really believe that,” he said.
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
Every year around the first week of June when hurricane season officially opens, we are all reminded repeatedly to begin our hurricane preparations. The laundry list of purchases and things we must do, particularly homeowners, is ubiquitous in local media. And, frankly, many of us go through the annual tradition with a kind of bland recognition of our responsibilities, like that guy in the old Dunkin’ Donuts commercial.
But this week has many of us wondering, why, if we are required to be so damn prepared, was the company that manages all the city’s power not? We know this was a mess, a direct hit from a hurricane (something we haven’t seen in quite a while), but that’s why they call it preparedness. You do it before there is a problem. Maybe CenterPoint needs a primer or how to be ready for a storm, a checklist of sorts, like the ones everyone gives us regular folks once a year.
So, instead of everyone telling us to buy water, fill up on gas and keep our trees trimmed, here’s a list that will maybe help keep you guys from screwing this up so badly next time.
Charge up your technology.
One of the keys to surviving after a hurricane or other natural disaster is to have access to your electronic devices. You can make emergency calls, check the status of storms and communicate with service providers like power companies, for example. For you, CenterPoint, this means actually having technology that functions well ahead of time. Your service outage tracker, which crapped out after the derecho, looks more like something a third grader did with a finger painting app than what a multi-billion-dollar company rolls out as a way for its customers to find out when they might be able to watch Netflix again. Figure it out.
Trim your trees.
This is one of the more galling requests every year. Homeowners are told to trim their trees to keep them healthy during the rain and wind of typical Gulf Coast summer weather. There are even suggestions that we need to keep limbs from power lines to prevent serious problems. But given that the power lines are YOUR responsibility, shouldn’t you handle most of that heavy lifting? Clearly, the city’s lush vegetation is one of biggest problems when storms come a’callin’. Many tree services won’t go near limbs around power lines because (why is that again?) you explicitly tell people not to go near them. Oh, and by the way, it’s really freaking expensive. Time to start doing your lawn maintenance in the spring like the rest of us.
Have a plan.
We are informed it is important to have an evacuation plan if we live in an area prone to flooding or surge. Make sure we have days worth of medicine, plenty of gas for our cars, a place to stay. Well, your turn. Instead of calling on the help of thousands of crews from around the state (and neighboring states) WHEN something happens, how about getting those plans in place BEFORE it does? We had crews of linemen, the real heroes, staged but unable to do anything because of contract issues, others sitting around waiting for instructions. What kind of shoddy emergency plan is that? Be better, man.
Trees on power lines is an all-too-familiar sight.
Photo by Darrin Clifton
Communicate with your neighbors.
Houston residents are resilient because of our neighbors, the one’s that live literally next door and the one’s who live in the region. Disaster planners suggest we stay in good contact with our family, friends and neighbors as disasters unfold so we can help take care of one another. Like so many companies, you claim to be a part of the Houston family, but when we needed you most, you pretended you’d never met us before and looked like Ted Cruz caught at the airport on his way to Cancun.
Hours, days even, without updates or critical communication about what was going on is unacceptable when your neighbors are suffering. Even if you cannot get the power on as quickly as we all would like, the silence is absolutely deafening and completely unforgivable.
Realize where you live.
Every year we are told we have to just brace for impact when it comes to hurricane season because we chose to live along the Gulf Coast (no word on what we are supposed to do about freezing in the winter, however). Well, guess what, CenterPoint, you live here too. You’ve taken the great responsibility of being one of just a handful of energy services and systems providers in the region, yet you behave like you are built for some tranquil paradise, not the eye of a damn hurricane.
Yes, it is expensive to consider mitigating factors to make keeping lights on more realistic like burying power lines and keeping foliage at bay. Ask us about our roofs and our flood insurance and our homeowners insurance and our backup generators and our battery-powered lamps and fans. We know all about preparedness. We shouldn’t have to school our energy provider on such basics of life in Houston.
Have a disaster relief fund for yourself.
Maybe the most humiliating kick in the crotch (to borrow a phrase from The Police) is the fact that after all of this is over and we have our power back, we, the people most harmed by all this will be the ones footing the bill. Your CEO admitted as much. Same thing during the freeze. What kind of BS is that? We have to set aside an emergency fund (if we are able) to protect against these kinds of surprise problems.
Maybe, instead of increasing your executive pay and investing in stock buybacks, you might want to set aside a rainy-day fund for moments just like this. You would be hailed as heroes instead of cursed as villains. You are our only source of our power infrastructure. We pay you a LOT to keep it up and running. Should we be forced to pay for your failings simply because you don’t know how to manage your investments? Get a bigger piggy bank.
HOUSTON – Texas Governor Greg Abbott toured NRG Arena Monday to examine the 250 beds set up there for Houstonians who’ve been discharged from area hospitals but don’t have a safe place to go after Hurricane Beryl.
The state set up the operation at NRG Arena to help with healthcare access and provide ready-made meals, water, ice, and shelter to those who lost power.
With Houston Mayor John Whitmire by his side, Abbott said Texas will continue to focus on assisting residents directly impacted by the storm and those who are still without power.
Abbott doubled down on his stance on demanding answers from CenterPoint Energy, stating that they have a deadline to give them information on their response or Abbott suggests issuing an executive order.
“If CenterPoint does not respond to my request, I will be issuing an executive order imposing, what I think, are the appropriate standards,” Abbott said. “The standards I want to impose on CenterPoint would be far more costly than what they may be coming up with. Separate from that, if they don’t comply with my request and refuse to work with them, we’re going to completely re-evaluate the current status of CenterPoint in our area.”
Abbott did not pull any punches Sunday afternoon in going after CenterPoint for their failures in getting the lights back on for Houstonians as well as hundreds of thousands of others in the area.
“The failure of power companies to provide power to their customers is completely unacceptable,” Abbott said.
Abbott, who is back in the state after an economic trade mission to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan last week, joined Lt. Governor Dan Patrick at a news conference Sunday afternoon at Gallery Furniture. The governor made it clear that hurricane season is far from over and CenterPoint will be required to immediately start addressing multiple key issues to avoid what has happened post-Beryl from happening again this hurricane season.
“I will give CenterPoint until July 31st to provide my office with specific actions that they will take, to address the following issues that focus on improving power reliability. #1 removal of any vegetation that threatens any power line covered in the geographic region covered by CenterPoint,” Abbott said. “CenterPoint must specify actions that it will take in the coming months that it did not take in Beryl that will reduce or eliminate power outages in the event of another tropical storm arriving at the gulf coast.”
Abbott described some of the other actions the state will require from CenterPoint.
“Regardless of the reason, CenterPoint did not have an adequate number of workers pre-staged to immediately address the power outage. So, my demand upon CenterPoint they must specify what actions they will take to pre-stage a sufficient number of workers immediately to any power outages,” he said. “We must know was CenterPoint protecting Texans or was it protecting its own pocketbook.”
Governor Abbott also has other action steps from CenterPoint that must be made between now and the 31st. He made it clear that if they don’t, the state will reevaluate CenterPoint’s presence in Texas.
Lt. Governor Dan Patrick says hearings will be taking place next month in Austin to further investigate as to why Houstonians were left in the dark for so long.
“A freight train is coming,” said Patrick adding “you better be prepared.”
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
HOUSTON – Texas Governor Greg Abbott did not pull any punches Sunday afternoon in going after CenterPoint for their failures in getting the lights back on for Houstonians as well as hundreds of thousands of others in the area.
“The failure of power companies to provide power to their customers is completely unacceptable,” Abbott said.
Abbott, who is back in the state after an economic trade mission to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan last week, joined Lt. Governor Dan Patrick at a news conference Sunday afternoon at Gallery Furniture. The governor made it clear that hurricane season is far from over and CenterPoint will be required to immediately start addressing multiple key issues to avoid what has happened post-Beryl from happening again this hurricane season.
“I will give CenterPoint until July 31st to provide my office with specific actions that they will take, to address the following issues that focus on improving power reliability. #1 removal of any vegetation that threatens any power line covered in the geographic region covered by CenterPoint,” Abbott said. “CenterPoint must specify actions that it will take in the coming months that it did not take in Beryl that will reduce or eliminate power outages in the event of another tropical storm arriving at the gulf coast.”
Abbott described some of the other actions the state will require from CenterPoint.
“Regardless of the reason, CenterPoint did not have an adequate number of workers pre-staged to immediately address the power outage. So my demand upon CenterPoint they must specify what actions they will take to pre-stage a sufficient number of workers immediately to any power outages,” he said. “We must know was CenterPoint protecting Texans or was it protecting its own pocketbook.”
Governor Abbott also has other action steps from CenterPoint that must be made between now and the 31st. He made it clear that if they don’t, the state will reevaluate CenterPoint’s presence in Texas.
Lt. Governor Dan Patrick says hearings will be taking place next month in Austin to further investigate as to why Houstonians were left in the dark for so long.
“A freight train is coming,” said Patrick adding “you better be prepared.”
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
SUGAR LAND, Texas – For those without power still from Hurricane Beryl, the focus in recent days has not only been on when someone might be on their street working to get the power back on, but also on the skies.
“It’s like the one time I don’t want rain because I usually like having rain around here,” said Aerie Hsu, a Sugar Land resident.
The reason is simple. Three days filled with thunder and lightning in the aftermath of Beryl has been a factor for crews to contend with when it comes to picking up debris or getting the power back on.
Raj Singh says he has been monitoring the weather carefully. “100%,” said Singh.
In recent days, Singh says his concerns have been heightened when looking at the radar.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, 1:45, they will stop working at three o’clock because it will start raining,’” said Singh.
A worker KPRC 2 Investigates spoke with off-camera made it clear that if lightning or thunder roll through the area they are working in, they must stop working, which is exactly what has happened on multiple occasions this week.
“I’m like here it comes this going to be delayed again tomorrow, they told me the end of day they would fix this area and now with the storm coming and they are right there, there is not much we can do,”’ Hsu said.
Aside from a slow response in the eyes of its customers and the weather, workers also shared that because of a wet spring and summer, the soil in our area is saturated with water. As a result of this, they have been also having to deal with more mud than expected.
This all is much different than a year ago when the area was seeing with daily sunny skies while dealing with a drought.
KPRC 2 Investigates did see crews attempting to get the power back on the street Singh and Hsu live on lay Saturday afternoon, but by early evening storms had once again moved into the neighborhood.
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
A man has been arrested after barricaded himself in a Houston-area apartment unit with a hostage after shooting at police.
The scene was first reported by Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez at around 8:30 p.m. Friday night. Authorities Harris County Sheriff’s Office responded to a disturbance call on the 500 block of Normandy Street in Greens Bayou.
When authorities arrived, they were met with gunshots, before the shooter ran into an apartment unit.
An hour after the initial confrontation, Sheriff Gonzalez reported that the man has an adult female hostage in the unit with him. The Harris County SWAT team was on the scene.
20 minutes after that report, it was announced that the man was taken into custody without further incident. The female hostage was not injured during the arrest.
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
Here’s a look at this weekend’s tasty food and drink happenings:
Saturday, noon to midnight
2202 Dallas
8th Wonder is throwing a 713 Day Bash complete with live music from Donny Houston, Matt Mejia, and Shame On Me from 2 to 8 p.m., a vendor market curated by Good Market HTX, outdoor activities, cannabis beverages, 8th Wonder brews and more.
Saint Arnold Downtown Pub Crawl
Saturday, 2 to 6 p.m.
Saint A is celebrating 713 Day by bringing its cult favorite pub crawl to downtown. Don your most Houston gear and snag your punchcard at any of the first stops — Flying Saucer, McIntyre’s, Underground Hall, Angel Share, Shay McElroy’s, Little Dipper and Molly’s Pub — from 2 to 3 p.m., then hit five of the seven stos before ending at Market Square Park for live music and an after party, where you’ll receive your prize, a coveted Saint Arnold Pub Crawl pint glass. As always, designated drivers are both eligible for the prize and encouraged to attend.
Red, White & Brut Bastille Day Bash at Brasserie 19
Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
1962 West Gray
Joined by Moët Hennessy, B19 hosts its Red, White & Brut Bastille Day Bash, an afternoon filled with specialty cocktails, bubbles, brunch-sized bottles, raffles, swag, French discothèque tunes and food specials. Guests are encouraged to wear their finest French chic.
Hamsa’s Yotam Dolev is collaborating with chef Dominick Lee, recipient of the inaugural “Underbelly Scholarship” from James Beard award-winning chef Chris Shepherd, on a summer cookout menu at Hamsa. Featuring the flavors of Tel Aviv and New Orleans, guests can enjoy a three-course family-style meal, with features like salatim spread, fried green tomato with cayenne-peach schug, blackened chicken kabab with black tahini, lemon harissa Gulf shrimp and grits and challah bread bananas foster pudding. Reservations are open to the public for $65 a person
Latin Restaurant Weeks
All weekend long
Running daily through July 19, Latin Restaurant Weeks returns for its sixth year to celebrate and support Latin chefs and culinary businesses across Greater Houston. Diners can explore 70+ local restaurants and food businesses offering special menu items, limited-time deals and pre-fixe menus highlighting Latin American cuisine, with participants including Churrascos, Gaspachos Mexican Bites, The Lymbar, Segundo Coffee Lab, Space City Birria and Taqueria La Perla de Jalisco.
KINGWOOD, Texas – A local man is calling for changes to protocols at an independent living facility in Kingwood. It’s where he says his mother died early this morning during extremely hot conditions.
The power at The Terraces was knocked out during Hurricane Beryl and hasn’t been restored.
Jonathan Sturgis loved and adored his 93-year-old mother, Barbara Sturgis.
“Wonderful lady. Best mom you could have, a lot of people say that. She’s been through a lot,” he said.
Most recently, Jonathan says his mom was subjected to sweltering heat living at The Terraces.
She died this morning as other residents were being voluntarily evacuated. Jonathan says he has concerns about how the facility’s management company, Frontier Management, handled the situation.
“No communication before the storm hit, no communication during the storm, and we got one email on Wednesday, two days after the storm hit,” he added.
He says this is a copy of the email that partly reads: “Our generator continues to run select lighting and power in both dining rooms and the kitchen. We have air conditioners and fans in place.”
“Went up there and had lunch with her [his mom] on Tuesday, and when I entered the facility, it seemed like it was pretty reasonable considering they were on a backup generator. Temperatures were a little bit elevated but under control,” Sturgis said.
But he says that wasn’t the case by Thursday.
“By Thursday morning my mom passed away, I got up there 9 a.m. in the morning, and I immediately noticed right away the building was significantly hotter,” he said.
When KPRC 2′s Deven Clarke asked if he felt residents should’ve been evacuated sooner, Jonathan’s response: “Yes. Absolutely no doubt. No doubt at all.”
92-year-old Bob Burgess also lives at The Terraces.
“It was hot no question, that’s why they had to evacuate because it was having an effect on elderly people,” Burgess said.
Burgess says his main frustration lies with CenterPoint which says it prioritizes power restoration for “facilities vital to safety health and welfare,” but so far, Burgess says CenterPoint hasn’t shown up there.
“The situation seems to be, have been poorly handled by somebody. It took a long time for not much to happen,” Burgess said.
We reached out to Frontier Management with questions about possibly making changes to their communication and evacuation protocols. Someone from corporate said they would pass our message along but so far; we have not heard back.
We also reached out to CenterPoint and while we haven’t heard back, according to CenterPoint’s restoration tracker, the facility is in blue which means an assessment has been completed. Still no word on exactly when power will be restored.
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
HOUSTON – Hurricane Beryl’s power outages in the Houston area are historic for CenterPoint, according to Jason Ryan, Executive Vice President of Regulatory Services and Government Affairs. And fueled by “unprecedented extreme weather” including not just Beryl, but freezes, drought and rain that have all contributed to conditions that caused debris — entire trees and limbs — to bring down or damage power lines.
In a live and exclusive interview with KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding this afternoon, Ryan said the amount of help they brought in was unprecedented too. on Wednesday, 11-thousand workers were out on 16-hour shifts, restoring power and making repairs.
Ryan — who said he also has no power — expects the company to reach its goal of restoring power for one million customers by the end of Wednesday, as promised.
What’s up with the outage tracker?
“So the outage tracker map that we put up, last night is still a temporary fix that shows kind of in groups where you are in our restoration process. We will update that map three times a day at noon, at 4 p.m., 8 p.m.,” Ryan said.
Starting Thursday, CenterPoint will also give customers estimated restoration times. That should help us all get a better handle on how long it will take to get power restored to most folks.
The company’s outage tracker crashed with more than 900,000 outages during May’s derecho and the company told everyone a new, better tool was coming.
“But we are bringing a completely new, outage tracker map that will be able to withstand the significant traffic that we saw during the derecho. It was that significant traffic on the map that brought that site down. We knew if we put that same site back up, it would not meet customer expectations this go-around either. So that’s why we came up with the outage map that we put out yesterday. We will continue to refine the information on that map and provide estimated restoration times starting tomorrow,” Ryan told Goulding. The new outage tracker was supposed to be ready by the end of this month, but Ryan didn’t have a date for the rollout.
More than a million customers were still without power in the Houston metro area Wednesday night after Hurricane Beryl’s destructive wind.
Transcript from the full interview:
Gage Goulding: Thank you so much. I know you’re incredibly busy. You and your entire team. On behalf of Houston, we thank you for all the hard work the men and women here at CenterPoint are doing. First and foremost, how are you and your team? Is everybody okay and safe?
Jason Ryan: We are. And you know, I want to start out by thanking our customers for their patience. We’re about 48 hours since the hurricane left the greater Houston area. And our team has performed well. We’ve had no serious injuries or fatalities. Very proud of that. Especially with the more than 10,000 additional resources that we brought in from other utilities. They’re not used to being in Houston. they’re working in dangerous conditions. And so, the men and women in the field are safe and super proud of them.
Gage Goulding: And that’s a staggering number. So let’s start there. I met, I think, of a crew as far away from Wheeling, West Virginia that I, whenever I was out and I worked in Wheeling, West Virginia, many moons ago. And I was just so shocked that they were here so quickly. And I believe the number was 12,000 people out working to restore power. Have you ever had an activation of that size before, or is this kind of historic proportions, if you will.
Jason Ryan: So we’ve never had this many customers out from a storm before. 2.26 million customers out at the height of the storm. so as a result of that unprecedented outage number, we needed to have an unprecedented response. So we brought those crews in as soon as it was safe to bring them into Houston, and got them to work. There are more than 11,000 people working on the system today.
Gage Goulding: 11,000?
Jason Ryan: Yes.
Gage Goulding: So let’s talk about that. That was an incredible goal of a million people restored by the end of today. Are you confident? Are we going to reach that?
Jason Ryan: Yes, we’re on track to reach that. We, restored 918,000 customers as of 1:00 today. So we’re on track to hit that million customer mark. Our crews are working 16 hour days. And we’re going to work non-stop around the clock until we get all of our customers back on. But we are confident in hitting, our goal for today.
Gage Goulding: So we put an article up earlier asking our KPRC 2 Insiders to, you know, give us some questions that they want to ask you if they can be in the hot seat with you right now. One of the questions was, and we saw some crews, you know, just in a parking lot. “There’s crews down the street for me, there in a parking lot. They’re not working. What are they doing?” Is that a shift waiting to go on? You know, what are these? How does that all work?
Jason Ryan: It could be a number of things. It could be them documenting the work that they’ve done so far. It could be them getting additional directions for the work they need to do. You know, some of these crews, they get on site. Based on the assessment that they’ve done, that we’ve done, they may need additional information before they can get started working. Again. 10,000 plus of these personnel are not CenterPoint energy employees. They need to understand the standards to which we have to build our system. They need to understand how high the clearances for the lines need to be to comply with local ordinances. So they may be getting that additional information before they start their work. Or they may be, recording the work that’s been done to date so that we can get those outage numbers constantly updated. You know, so there are a number of reasons why they may be, idle for a minute. They may also be on break. We know our customers are hot. The men and women doing this work are hot. So they are taking breaks. They are rehydrating. So that may be another reason why you see, the crews not actively working, but they are out there working.
Gage Goulding: What are some of the biggest problems that you’re dealing with right now? Is it you know, what we saw during the May storm? Transmission lines down. Is it vegetation? What are some of the biggest obstacles out there?
Jason Ryan: Yeah. So unlike that storm, unlike, Harvey before it, this is not a storm that caused material problems on our transmission system. The transmission system of the big poles and wires that move power across the state. We didn’t have material damage to the transmission system. We didn’t have material damage to our substations. Our substations didn’t flood, like they did during Harvey. This is a distribution system challenge. It is the poles and the wires that go from the substations to your home or business. That’s the distribution system. And it’s largely debris on that distribution system. It could be entire trees, that have fallen over. It could be limbs that have fallen over. You know, we’ve gone through significant freezes, significant drought, significant rain, unprecedented, extreme weather conditions on our large trees here in Houston. You’ve got large canopies without mature root systems and so that’s why you see entire trees coming over onto our infrastructure. So it is a vegetation tree problem on the distribution system. Our personnel as of the end of the day yesterday had walked 4,500 miles of distribution lines to assess the problem so they can assign the right crews to do the right work. You know before we can send the right crews out, we need to know do we need to send a construction crew out a large construction crew to rebuild the poles and the wires? Do we need to send a vegetation crew out to remove trees, or do we need to send a smaller crew out, to rework smaller parts of the distribution system? Knowing which crews to send out is the reason we do that assessment work in the first 48 hours.
Gage Goulding: And we we talked about, brought it up to the ratio back in May. That put quite a strain, actually, believe it or not, June 7 is when we did that interview. Fast forward a month to the day is whenever Beryl was about to make landfall. So just very ironic. And, you know, we talked back then about how during Ike, CenterPoint had 12 days to get, you know, ready to brace for it in duration. You had no time.
Jason Ryan: 15 minutes. Yeah.
Gage Goulding: How much time did you, you know, realize that? This is going to this is going to impact us and our customers.
Jason Ryan: eah. So we started watching this storm nine days out. And as everybody knows, at that time, it wasn’t looking like it was coming to Texas. Obviously, as the days got closer to Monday, that started to change. It really started to change over the weekend. When it was more clear that it was going to hit the Houston area. So we, lined up 3,000 mutual aid resources to come into Houston before the weekend. As it became more clear that this storm was going to have a direct hit on us, that’s when we increased the number of people that we asked for. And that’s where the, greater than 10,000 crews came in to play when it was clear that the storm was going to hit right here.
Gage Goulding: And one of the things that we talked about in depth that there’s already changed from the derecho to now was the outage tracker. And I, I want to quote our interview that we had. You said,”We didn’t meet customer expectations when that wasn’t available, when they needed it most. It’s not acceptable to us or our customers.” And this is what really stuck with me, “We know that we will not have that grace from our customers and communities to miss it again.”
Jason Ryan: That’s right.
Gage Goulding: The new outage tracker. You promised a new outage tracker in maybe a little bit quicker than you would have wanted to try it out. Are you happy with the new outage tracker? And is this the solution to make sure people are informed? [16:07:42][37.4]
Jason Ryan: So the outage tracker map that we put up, last night is still a temporary fix that shows kind of in groups where you are in our restoration process. We will update that map three times a day at noon, at 4 p.m., 8 p.m. We will update it three times a day. Starting tomorrow, we will have estimated restoration times. That’s more granular than what you see there today. That is still a temporary fix.
We are starting completely from scratch with a new outage map, that we unfortunately were aiming for the end of this month in advance of the typical hurricane, peak of hurricane season, right? August. September.
But we are bringing a completely new, outage tracker map that will be able to withstand the significant traffic that we saw during the derecho. It was that significant traffic on the map that brought that site down. We knew if we put that same site back up, it would not meet customer expectations this go-around either. So that’s why we came up with the outage map that we put out yesterday. We will continue to refine the information on that map and provide estimated restoration times starting tomorrow.
Gage Goulding: Another thing we talked about back in June, and it seems like such a long time ago, but in the broader, you know, business, there really isn’t. We talked about the supplies because that’s our concern back then was how does how did that the Rachel affect hurricane season where you have all your stock built up. And I remember you telling me that, you know, you said I can’t lie to you. We’re trying to get everything put back together. Were you able to replenish your stock in time, or are you facing any supply chain issues or we need more poles and we can’t get them?
Jason Ryan: We don’t have any material challenges with our supply right now. We did replenish that over the course of the last month plus, since the derecho. So we are not having supply issues, causing delays and restoration.
Gage Goulding: If I have no power, I see my neighbors still have it. I think there’s a lot of people. The number one question I get is, you know, when is you know, 77098 coming on when it was like a zip code or something like that, right. What can you tell people? Yeah. After. And I get it, I don’t have power either at home right now. It was a very uncomfortable sleep last night.
Jason Ryan: Same.
Gage Goulding: So you don’t have power, right?
Jason Ryan: Right. That’s right.
Gage Goulding: So even even one of the top dog doesn’t have that happen. So you’re you’re with us, you know, and I’m sure you’re wondering when is that beautiful white truck going to come down and fix my stuff. What can you offer to the CenterPoint customers and people of Houston to just help us get through this? You know what we dig For any information, what would you offer?
Jason Ryan: So, we know that customers want to understand the process. So yesterday we put out a visual of the process. It’s a five step process, right? It starts with our preparation post-storm. It starts with assessment. That’s step two of the process. Many of our customers are still in step two, but a number of our customers have gone on to step three, which is restoration at the circuit level. Think of, circuits being the main highways of the distribution system that bring on entire areas of town. And so we start working on circuits first with the theory of bring on the most people the quickest and you’ll get to the one-days, two-days later. We know that’s still frustrating for those, 1 or 2 people that are out in that neighborhood, but our priority is to get the most people on the soonest. So as soon as we finish those circuit level outages, that’s where you might see certain neighborhoods on, but other neighborhoods not on. Again, we work down the priority list. So, step threeare those circuit level, outages. Step four starts getting into the neighborhood specific outage and then step five is the premise-specific outage.
During Hurricane Ike, for example, I was the last house in the neighborhood to get on because the line to my house was on the ground. Nobody else had the line on the ground. And so I was one of the last ones because that’s the process that we use.
Gage Goulding: And everybody wants to have the priority status. Even you don’t have the priority status. Is there a priority leveling? Is there certain neighborhoods get power first because it’s, you know, status or anything like that or is it based off of where the hospitals are?
Jason Ryan: We do give priority to a number of public safety-related premises. So think water treatment facilities, 911 centers. So we do prioritize getting those facilities back up while at the same time we’re working on the circuit level outages for the homes and businesses. So we do prioritize those public safety necessary premises to get back up before you get into boil water notices unnecessarily, things like that. So we don’t want the problems to get bigger just because, you might be the one-days, two-days, but you’re an incredibly important public safety premise So we do prioritize those. We are working through those priority lists as we speak.
Gage Goulding: And we only have a couple of minutes. I want to get across two more things here. The last time we talked in June, you said Ike cost about $700 million in the derecho in May was around roughly at the time about $100 million. Is there any forecast on what this has already cost or what it will cost?
Jason Ryan: Not yet. We’re still in the first 48 hours of the event, but we have brought in many more crews than we brought in, for the derecho, so this will be, you know, a multitude or, you know, twice as much, probably as the derecho event, but we’re still working on that.
Gage Goulding: And, we talked about this in depth in June, and we reported on it and I think this is a really interesting thing, the Resilience Plan, a huge monumental investment by CenterPoint to make the grid stronger. A lot of the questions people had were actually answered by that like, “Why isn’t CenterPoint investing in making the grid and everything stronger?” That’s actually in the process of happening. Can you explain how and what the Resilience Plan is and how that’s going to help? If we knock on wood and hopefully don’t get one of these again. But if it [the plan] happens, how it will help prevent having these monumental numbers?
Jason Ryan: So our Resilience Plan that we filed with the state back in March has 28 different programs associated with it. Some of them are on hard infrastructure, like distribution lines, where we’re replacing wooden poles with harder composite poles. Some of them are cybersecurity related. Some of them are physical security related. But let me stick with the pole example. And we’ve seen during the duration that we’ve seen during this storm where we’ve already started putting those composite poles up. In these severe weather events, those composite poles remain standing, and right next to them, wooden poles that we haven’t yet replaced are on the ground, snapped in half. So we know from these early tests that the Resilience Plan will yield better results once it’s fully implemented.
Gage Goulding: Well, Jason, thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time. We appreciate all the work that CenterPoint is doing and you know, look, a lot of people still in Houston without power it’s going to take time, but 12,000 people, that’s a lot of people that are out there working right now. Anything else you want to add in there that we didn’t get to?
Jason Ryan: You know, only again recognizing that our customers are feeling the brunt of this. And understanding that in addition to the power being out, many of them have suffered significant, loss to property, right? Trees on their houses, trees on their cars. Trees on their businesses. And so our hearts go out to our customers. We thank them for their patience as we continue to do restoration. But we do know, that there’s a lot of suffering out in the community and we’re we will not stop working until the work is done.
On Tuesday, Mayor John Whitmire took a helicopter ride to survey the damage in the city and then called a press conference to talk about the biggest danger ahead, which most people would agree is the lack of power.
Not only are local hospitals getting backed up with patients they don’t want to release to homes without power, but residents are increasingly testy about the lack of air conditioning while temperatures soar. It doesn’t help any that for some reason cell phones and access to the internet are out across the area. So how people are supposed to get the messages being handed out is anyone’s guess.
Houston ISD announced it would also be closed on Wednesday, another indicator of the seriousness of the damage that hit the area. Superintendent Mike Miles is well known for his belief that children do best by being in school even following severe weather events.
And then there’s the scarcity of traffic lights and the propensity for some predators to come out at night.
“We did not anticipate the amount of power we would lose. And quite frankly the city is very dark right now,” Acting Chief Larry Satterwhite said, adding at another point: “We did not anticipate is the magnitude of the power outage our No. 1 problem was power outages it creates dangerous situations.
He and the other officials echoed each other that people need to stay off the streets especially at night.
As evidenced by media questions following the parade of speakers including Acting Governor Dan Patrick, the natives are restless. Many of those questions were lobbed at Brad Tutenjian, CenterPoint Energy’s vice president of Electric Distribution Operations and Power Delivery who repeatedly said how hard they were working.
As it turns out, the thousands of linemen brought in from other states to help out with Beryl didn’t start work right away because they had to be trained. Even the local CenterPoint crews couldn’t start until after Beryl left the immediate area, sometime around 3 p.m. Monday. Understandable but not great to hear for what was initially projected to be a two-day period at most without power.
Tutenjiam alternated between saying CenterPoint was completely prepared for Beryl and arguing that it caught them by surprise both in its location and strength. To date, he said, about 650,000 customers have seen their power restored with the goal of having a total of 1 million back in service by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Of course that still leaves another 1.6 million in the area who will remain without power. In texts and robo calls Tuesday, CenterPoint spread the word that it would be concentrating on fire and police facilities as well as hospitals most immediately and everyone else could expect to wait several more days without power.
“We’re going to push CenterPoint to do everything possible,” Whitmire proclaimed.
As for the city’s preparations, which have been much touted for its beefed up training in water rescue for police and fire and additional rescue equipment, apparently it wasn’t discovered until the middle of Beryl that nine fire stations didn’t have backup generators and are/were (?) out of commission until regular power was restored.
Whitmire blamed the lack of backups on the city’s prior administration (Mayor Sylvester Turner) and vowed that would be corrected. “That’s what we inherited and that’s what we’re here to fix.”
The city has continued to open up additional cooling centers to meet the increasing demand. In addition, the backed up hospital problem will be solved Patrick said by opening up NRG Stadium “that will eventually have 250 beds — this bit of good news apparently ignoring the report from NRG Tuesday that its roof was damaged during Beryl.
Patrick reported that he’d talked with President Biden Tuesday, asked for and was granted an Emergency Disaster Declaration which would provide reimbursement for to 75 percent of the debris cleanup costs. He insisted that there was “no delay from the White House, no delay from us: in getting this declaration, despite a report in the Houston Chronicle that Biden said he couldn’t get hold of either Abbott (who is out of the country on aa trade tour through Asia) or Patrick.
And while Whitmire has gone out of his way to extoll all of what he calls unprecedented cooperation at all levels it still paints an awkward picture that County Commissioners Adrian Garcia and Tom Ramsey attend the mayoral press conferences while County Judge Lina Hidalgo is absent
Meanwhile piles of debris were everywhere, whether picked up by conscientious homeowners and work crews or just left on the side of the roads and littered across properties.
And the rush was on for generators at a local Lowe’s.
Photo by Gary Beaver
Apparently many people are less and less inclined to rely upon CenterPoint coming to their rescue.
Lines for generators were long and longer at Lowe’s, Home Depot and the like to purchase portable units, in many cases waiting in lines for one or two hours to buy them. Restoration of traffic lights was sporadic and their absence didn’t bring out the best among Houston drivers still anxious to get somewhere else. Some residents took long country drives to find cell service which had significant problems in the area.
Communications suffered as well, If you don’t have power for your TV and your cell phone and internet aren’t working, how do you find out what’s going on?
The private media company AccuWeather Tuesday announced a preliminary estimate of the damage and the economic loss from Beryl across the United States and set it at $28-$32 Billion (yes with a B).
HOUSTON – The Houston OEM has provided several useful tips on how to separate debris after a severe weather event.
Many residents in the Houston area and Harris County are left to clean up debris after Hurricane Beryl struck Southeast Texas on Monday. While many are trying to figure out what to do next, the Houston OEM recommends separating debris into six categories and where to place debris for pick up.
Debris should be placed curbside, without blocking the roadway or storm debris.
Any debris placed from the sidewalk toward your property will not be picked up.
Placing debris near or on trees, poles, or other structures makes removal difficult. This includes fire hydrants and meters.
If you don’t have a sidewalk, ditch, or utility line in front of your home, place debris at the edge of your property before the curb.
Normal household trash: Will not be picked up with debris as part of this program. Residents should continue to follow normal garbage removal schedule.
Vegetable debris: Leaves (do not place in bags), logs, plants and tree branches, etc.
Construction and demolition debris: Building materials, carpet, drywall, furniture, lumber, mattresses, pluming, etc.
Appliances and white goods: Air conditioners, dishwashers, freezers, refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers, water heaters, etc.
Electronics: Computers, radios, stereos, televisions, other devices with a cord.
Household hazardous waste: Cleaning supplies, batteries, lawn chemicals, oils, oil-based paints and stains, pesticides, etc.
