Drive around any neighborhood in Houston, and you can see for yourself that there is still plenty of leftover cleanup from Hurricane Beryl. Fences are still down, tarps still adorn rooftops, and I’m sure many Houstonians are getting (or awaiting) copious amounts of correspondence from their insurance providers.
One of the single biggest instances of property damage, though, remains in disrepair, but it looks like the end is in sight for the two gigantic, stadium-width sized holes in the roof of NRG Stadium. In a statement on Friday, the folks at NRG Park indicated that a timetable has been established under which both holes in the roof will be repaired in time for the Texans’ Week 4 home game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“Guest safety remains our top priority,” NRG Park said in Thursday’s release. “We appreciate the patience and support of our guests as we work diligently to restore the stadium roof to its full operational capacity.”
For those unfamiliar with the exact location of the damage, and the path of the resulting sunlight on a daily basis, check out the time lapsed video below, which shows the path of sunlight from late morning into the latter portion of the afternoon, which is relevant for noon kickoff times. As you can see, particularly in the south end zone, there have been some sun soaked fans in the Texans’ two home preseason games:
Check out this time lapse of how the sun will hit the field and stands at NRG Stadium during tomorrow’s Texans vs Giants game. A couple of strips of panels were lost during Hurricane Beryl last month. If you’re attending the game, this will give you a good idea of what to expect!… pic.twitter.com/JKrCHwcsYr
The Texans’ next home game is the Week 2 Sunday Night Football game against the Chicago Bears, and after that, they play at home in Weeks 4 and 5 against the Jaguars and the Buffalo Bills, respectively. Here are some of the relevant details on the repair plan:
The panel over the field of play (around the south end 25 yard line) is getting fixed first The hole that is above the field of play never really came into play drastically during the two preseason games, other than maybe some slight agitation in location the ball on punt returns. Honestly, the biggest effect from that patch of roof damage was the glare on the television broadcast, which made it a difficult watch when the action was taking place in that area. The worst case scenario would have been rain coming through that hole and creating a patch of wet turf on an otherwise dry field. It sounds like the we are assured a clean field of play for the home opener.
It looks like the fans in the south end zone will be saved from extreme sun (again) Meanwhile, the other hole in the roof, the long open space above the south stands in the lower bowl, will be fixed in time for the next NOON kickoff in Week 4, which is a great thing, since from what I was told by fans whose seats are in that part of the stadium, the sunlight hitting them was brutally hot. The Week 2 game against the Bears is a night game, so those fans should be clear of getting fried in sunlight once again, a nice happy accident from the scheduling czars.
This situation was a whole lot worse back in 2008 If this feels like there are a whole lot of moving parts to ensure (s) the integrity of the planning field, and (b) the physical comfort of a chunk of the fan base on game day, just know that this is nothing compared to the last time Mother Nature decided to punch holes on the roof via hurricane. In 2008, Hurricane Ike did more than twice the damage just before Week 2, and the Texans were forced to play the entire season with the roof open for home games, including four games in the month of October. If you’ve ever been in NRG Stadium with the roof open on a sunny day, then you know THAT is truly brutal.
Houstonians may want to reconsider any complaints they have about the persistent heat. Houston area meteorologists say residents have it to thank for warding off possible tropical activity from entering the Texas Gulf Coast.
Matt Lanza, a meteorologist with Space City Weather, said he recently joked with fellow meteorologist Eric Berger that August should bring “all the misery it could bring” to block any potential storm development.
“It keeps us pretty safe from tropical stuff, and we do not want to deal with another hurricane here this year,” Lanza added. “You kind of root for [heat] this time of year.”
This week is forecast to be the hottest week of the summer, with temperatures soaring to the triple digits by Wednesday. Highs on Monday and Tuesday are expected to remain in the upper 90s, between 98 and 99 degrees.
Lanza said the high pressure sitting overhead from a heat dome, which is causing the warm weather, is keeping tropical activity away and is expected to continue to do so for at least the next week or two.
He noted that meteorologists will be watching a tropical wave moving into the Caribbean next week. However, Lanza said if the hot, dry pattern persists, it should drift south of the region without causing any issues.
The National Hurricane Center forecasts that the wave has a roughly 30 percent chance of developing over the next week. Lanza added that it could cross the Yucatan Peninsula into Central America or Mexico.
“If things change over Texas or if that high pressure weakens or shifts a little bit, that’s going to at least crack the door to something coming into the Gulf and toward Texas,” Lanza said. “That doesn’t guarantee that we’re going to see a tropical storm or hurricane, but it’s something that we would want to keep a close eye on if it comes a little further north of the Gulf.”
The heat is also partially responsible for creating conditions to keep Hurricane Debby away from the Texas Gulf Coast. Debby started as a tropical storm and hit Florida’s coast on Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane. It has since been downgraded back to a tropical storm.
Lanza said Debby was tugged to the north by a low pressure system. Simultaneously, the high pressure system of the heat dome over the west slowed the storm down, not allowing it much wiggle room to move or exit.
Meteorologists have warned residents in the states affected by Debby, including Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, that the projected rainfall totals could climb upward of 20 to 30 inches.
Lanza described the high temperatures in the Houston area as usual for this time of year, noting that last summer was “far worse” overall, with multiple triple-digit days.
So far, only one day of triple-digit heat has been recorded since June 1, which meteorologists consider the beginning of the summer season. Temperatures could climb between 102 and 106 degrees through Friday.
According to Lanza, nighttime lows are unusually high this summer. Most nights remain in the 80s, indicating an increase in overnight temperatures for this time of year.
Lanza noted that weather conditions will start to change in late August and September. Temperatures will get cooler, and the environment will be less stable. Tropical development could be imminent, with numerous candidates in the Atlantic.
“We’re going to have something to watch at least at some point,” Lanza said. “I don’t know exactly when that is, but I would advise people to buckle up. It will be a bit of a bumpy ride for the next couple of months.
The possibility of a Category 3 or 4 hurricane developing and subsequently hitting the region keeps Lanza up at night since Hurricane Beryl — a Category 1 storm — occurred over a month ago.
“I think my whole calculus has changed after Beryl,” Lanza said. “We’re both more vulnerable to even modest hurricane winds, a Category 1 or 2, capable of doing extensive damage.
“If we’re starting to get into August and September when we usually get our bigger storms, and there’s a category 3 or 4 out there, I’m going to be extremely unsettled about what the impacts could be for this area,” he added.
Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Beryl pummeled through Texas, many residents are now left in financial limbo as they wait for their FEMA checks to come in.
We sat down with Derrick Kinney, a financial expert with GetTheRaiseYouWant.com, and he shared how you can stay up to date with your bills while you wait for emergency funds.
Q: I covered my storm-related costs with a credit card. Without that FEMA check, I can’t pay the bill. What do I do?
A: Call the credit card company and let them know you were involved in a hurricane. Ask the company what support or help [they can] provide. This can come in the form of waived interest rates or even waived fees. The goal right now is to look at every possible aspect to basically buy yourself time, at least for the next couple of weeks.
Q: Do credit card companies have any hardship allowances?
A: It depends on the credit card. Most are willing to work with you, as long as you’re caught up on your payments already. If you’re behind, that’s a different story, but they may give you a cash advance, or they may give you a reduced interest rate. Other things to keep in mind: You could borrow against your 401k, or possibly a life insurance policy. But keep in mind, while these are not the best options right away, when you’re in a pinch, you want to find every possible option to make sure you cover your bills in the short term.
Q: I have a low credit score; will that affect how much money I get from credit card companies?
A: It could. The key is, it’s typically not based on what you borrow, it’s your inability to pay the money back. So, if you’re already at a low credit score, the likelihood of your credit card company letting you borrow money is pretty low. If you have a good credit score, this could be a good opportunity. Low score or not, it’s important to look at every possible way to make sure you make the rent. The goal is not to get ahead, but to stay current on your bills.
Q: How else can I bridge the money gap until I get my FEMA check?
A: The most important thing right now is to evaluate what your essential expenses are and what are your desired expenses. For example, rather than eating out at restaurants, try making food at home to help cut some costs. Don’t make a financial dilemma on top of a hurricane dilemma.
Q: How do I protect my credit score if I’m late on payments?
A: Call the credit card company immediately. You want to be proactive and let them know, “Look, I have been part of this hurricane situation. It has dramatically impacted my finances. I’m going to be using my credit card more often. I want to give you a heads up on that. And also, is it possible to waive any fees, reduce the interest rate?”
You want to give them a heads up, so that way they know if there were to be a late payment, it doesn’t penalize you because they want to get paid. In most cases these days, many credit cards companies not all of them, are willing to work with you once they hear from you.
Q: Should I keep a log of when I contact my credit card company?
A: Keep records, because if it’s not written down, it’s as though it never, ever happened. Whether it’s on the Notes app on your phone or a journal, you want to make sure you get the person’s name, their phone extension, the time, the date you talked to them. Typically, the credit card company keeps records as well, but this is you owning your own situation. No one’s going to give you a loan for this. You want to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to protect you and your money, and that begins with writing down every single detail.
Q: If I can’t pay all my bills, how do I prioritize?
A: Here’s what you can do: Make a list on a sheet of paper or in the Notes app on your phone of all of the bills you have, the amount, and when they’re due. Add a separate column of what will impact your credit score the most. You could call your landlord possibly and ask for an extra week. If it’s a credit card or annual bill, those things get reported to the credit score companies, and those would be what I would place as a higher priority. All of them are important, but right now you want to make sure that you’re making very deliberate steps to protect you and your money. And that begins with calling each person. If they hear from you personally, they’re more likely to want to work with you.
Q: Where can I get immediate financial assistance?
A: It’s going to vary based on each individual community and where you live. But in most cases, most people will not give you a loan for a hurricane unless you already have a good credit score. Again, everybody wants to get paid back. In the case of an emergency, borrowing money from family, from friends could be a backup solution if they know you are going to pay them back.
At the end of the day,it’s important to stay calm and continue to act like you are the CEO of your money. How would a CEO in a crisis handle their money? And that’s how you want to think, even on the lowest level of what can you do to make the next best financial decision today, so you work yourself out of what could be a really bad situation.
Start your day here, Houston!
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
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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Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — Vacuums sucked the water out of the seaside inn run by Nick Gaido’s family in Galveston since 1911 as power was still spotty nearly one week after a resurgent Hurricane Beryl swept into Texas. Blue tarp covered much of the torn off roof. Gaido scheduled cleanup shifts for the hotel and restaurant staff who couldn’t afford to lose shifts to the enduring outages.
The July Fourth weekend was supposed to kickstart a lucrative tourism season for this popular getaway’s hospitality industry. But just dozens dotted the typically crowded beaches a week later. Gaido felt an urgent need to send the message that Galveston, Texas, is back open.
“We’ve dealt with storms in late August or in September,” Gaido said. “But when you have a storm that hits in the beginning of July, that’s different.”
Galveston, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Houston, has certainly weathered its share of natural disasters. Etched into its collective memory is the fury of a 1900 hurricane that killed thousands back when the island was emerging as a crown jewel for the state. More recently, Hurricane Ike’s 2008 wrath flooded its historic downtown with storm surge as high as 20 feet (6 meters) and caused more than $29 billion in damage.
Yet even Greater Houston’s storm-seasoned neighbors got taken off guard by Beryl’s sudden arrival. Crashing unusually early in the calendar, the Category 1 hurricane brought the island’s tourism-based economy to a halt during a time when local restaurants rely on an influx of beachgoers to lift revenues. Despite the widespread power outage, businesses and residents are buckling down.
In the harder-hit west side of Jamaica Beach, Way West Grill and Pizzeria was still without electricity on Saturday afternoon. Owner Jake Vincent felt stuck in limbo: he had heard power would return by July 19 but had hope that it might come sooner.
The loss ruined his entire inventory. He said enough mozzarella cheese to fill the back of his truck had gone to waste. Also spoiled was an 8-foot chest full of fries and an estimated 300 pounds (130 kg) of pepperoni.
Vincent no longer expects much from a year he had anticipated would finally bring “daylight” for his family-run restaurant founded in 2018. He said most of their annual sales come during the three summer months and that “this tourism season is probably done for.”
“It complicates things,” he said. “You bank all your summer money to get through the winter.”
Downed cables and orange construction cones could be found along the road linking the touristy strand’s seafood shacks to the west end’s colorful short-term rentals. Crews from Houston-area utility CenterPoint stood atop lifts, sweating as they restored line after line.
Still without power Saturday morning, Greg Alexander raked debris to the edge of the street in his Jamaica Beach neighborhood. Despite sleeping in a balcony-level room in a house already raised high off the ground, he said water poured into the windows. Beryl’s horizontal winds blew rain right onto his bed.
It’s just a part of life here for Alexander. His family moved full-time to Galveston in 2017 after he said Hurricane Harvey dumped 38 inches (nearly 1 meter) of water into their Lake City home. Without power, he said they’ve been “appreciating our car’s air conditioning more than ever.”
He doesn’t plan to leave. He said trials only strengthen the community.
“People on the west end aren’t like everybody else,” he said.
Steve Broom and Debra Pease still lacked power on Saturday but had been beating the heat elsewhere. Broom said they’d already booked a hotel in Houston this week so his daughter could use the Galveston beach house where they’ve lived full-time for about five years. They spent only the first night in Galveston and opted to sleep the rest of the week in their nonrefundable room.
Broom, 72, said he had never seen a hurricane come as early or increase as quickly as Beryl. Still, he joked that just one factor could force him to move off the island where he grew up.
“If they wipe out all these houses, then we’ll be front row and our property value will probably double or triple,” he said, before clarifying: “No, I hope that doesn’t happen.”
Anne Beem and her husband come every July from San Antonio to celebrate their birthdays. For her, the aftermath has been far worse than the hurricane itself.
They enjoyed a nice breeze with the windows open after the storm passed Monday. But she said Tuesday night brought “mosquitogeddon.” Hundreds of bugs filled the house so they slept in their car with the air conditioning blasting.
She said they also bought a kiddie pool to cool off before the power came back Thursday night.
“We just tried to look at it as an adventure,” she said. “Each day was some fresh hell.”
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This story has been updated to correct the estimated amount of spoiled pepperoni at Way West Grill and Pizzeria to 300 pounds, not 3,000 pounds.
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.
Baby formula maker Reckitt said supplies of some of its nutrition products are likely to be affected by a tornado that damaged one of its warehouses in Mount Vernon, Indiana.
Reckitt, a British consumer goods company, owns Mead Johnson Nutrition, the maker of Enfamil baby formula products. Reckitt on Wednesday said that the tornado, which struck on July 9, caused “significant damage” to the warehouse, which the company called “an important site for the Mead Johnson Nutrition business.” The facility, which is operated by a contractor, houses both raw materials and finished products.
A cluster of at least four tornadoes whipped up by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl barreled through Indiana’s southwestern corner, with winds up to 140 mph.
The twister that hit Mount Vernon and other parts of Posey County grew to about 300 yards wide and left a trail of damage nearly six miles long, collapsing much of a warehouse, derailing train cars, damaging mobile homes and ripping roofs off homes.
While Reckitt said that it regained access to the warehouse on July 13, the facility is not yet operational. In the meantime, all inbound deliveries have been diverted to other warehouses in the U.S., the company said.
That could mean temporary shortages of some of its baby formula products in the near future. Mead Johnson told CBS MoneyWatch that supplies of some of its nutrition products “will likely be affected in the short term.”
“We are partnering with customers and suppliers on expedited recovery efforts to minimize disruption by leveraging our global supply chain and managing inventory at our other U.S. warehouses,” Mead Johnson added in a statement.
Reckitt is still assessing the damage to the warehouse and said it would provide on update on its quarterly earnings call on July 24.
Reckitt also said the weather event will affect the company’s short-term sales. The company is “working closely with all our stakeholders including customers and suppliers, to minimize disruption, by leveraging our global supply chain and managing inventory at our other North American Nutrition warehouses and held by our retail partners,” the company said.
Reckitt added that it expects its property damage and business interruption insurance policies to mitigate the impact of the temporary facility closure on company earnings.
Parents and caregivers around the U.S. faced a severe shortage of infant formula in 2022 as the pandemic disrupted global supply chains. Compounding the problem was the closure of a Sturgis, Michigan, plant operated by Abbott Nutrition, a major manufacturer of baby nutrition products, because of bacterial infections.
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
Jackie Jecmenek, right, talks with city worker Bobby Head as she stands in front of her neighbor’s home after Beryl passed, July 8, 2024, in Bay City, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A vehicle is stranded in high waters on a flooded highway in Houston, July 8, 2024, after Beryl came ashore. (AP Photo/Maria Lysaker)
Boarded-up windows lined suburbs. Cars were stranded on flooded highways. Residents stayed put inside homes and hotels with no power.
A hotel guest navigates the halls after power was lost due to Hurricane Beryl, July 8, 2024, in Bay City, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
After the worst of the storm passed, many residents worked to clear roads from tree branches and other debris.
A motorcyclist manuevers a street flooded by heavy rains from Hurricane Beryl, in Tulum, Mexico, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Mexico
Before it reached Texas, Beryl caused havoc in Tulum, Mexico, where tens of thousands were without power as it swept through the region as a Category 2 hurricane.
People walk past a souvenir shop’s storefront boarded up preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Beryl, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Wind and rain whipped the seaside city through Friday. Residents sheltered in schools and hotels, and officials patrolled beaches to evacuate residents and tourists alike.
People line up to receive food at an army-provided soup kitchen for those impacted by Hurricane Beryl in Tulum, Mexico, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Those displaced were able to find some respite — and food — at shelters, with the army organizing soup kitchens. Others risked traveling through heavily flooded streets.
People stand on a rock during the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl in Tulum, Mexico, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Caribbean
But Beryl’s heaviest destruction was in the Caribbean, where entire towns — and even whole islands — were left decimated. The Category 5 storm ripped roofs off of homes and destroyed and tangled up boats on shorelines. Waves full of debris crashed onto the sand.
Evacuees from Union Island arrive in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, July 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucanus Ollivierre)
In Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, an arena was converted into a shelter with row upon row of thin beds and blankets.
People sit on cots in the National Arena that has been transformed into a shelter in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, in Kingston, Jamaica, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Collin Reid)
The destruction Beryl left behind will need months, and in some cases years, of rebuilding and recovery.
Boats damaged by Hurricane Beryl wade in the water at the Bridgetown Fisheries, Barbados, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A man looks out of the window of his home, which was destroyed by Hurricane Beryl in Clifton, Union Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucanus Ollivierre)
A house sits roofless after being damaged by Hurricane Beryl in Portland Cottage, Clarendon, Jamaica, July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Hudson)
Donna Charles, a hotel cook, watches as Hurricane Beryl passes through Bridgetown, Barbados, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
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While hovering around the national average, Florida’s gasoline prices remained unchanged last week as Hurricane Beryl threatened Gulf-area refineries.
The AAA auto club said an average gallon of regular unleaded gas in Florida cost $3.50 on Monday, the same as a week earlier. The national average price Monday was $3.52.
“The damage from Beryl caused limited damage to Gulf Coast energy facilities,” AAA spokesman Andrew Gross said in a prepared statement. “And while a record 60 million travelers were forecast to hit the highways for the July 4th holiday, the overall demand number for gasoline dropped. That is a rare feat for a holiday week and may point to a change in demand trends.”
The state average was up 24 cents from a month ago and 8 cents from a year ago.
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.
With around 350,000 homes and businesses still without power in the Houston area almost a week after Hurricane Beryl hit Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday said he’s demanding an investigation into the response of the utility that serves the area as well as answers about its preparations for upcoming storms. The number of customers still in the dark was down to some 293,000 early Monday, according to PowerOutage.com.
“Power companies along the Gulf Coast must be prepared to deal with hurricanes, to state the obvious,” Abbott said at his first news conference about Beryl since returning to the state from an economic development trip to Asia.
While CenterPoint Energy has restored power to about 1.9 million customers since the storm hit on July 8, the slow pace of recovery has put the utility, which provides electricity to the nation’s fourth-largest city, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared for the storm that left people without air conditioning in the searing summer heat.
Abbott said he was sending a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas requiring it to investigate why restoration has taken so long and what must be done to fix it. In the Houston area, Beryl toppled transmission lines, uprooted trees and snapped branches that crashed into power lines.
With months of hurricane season left, Abbott said he’s giving CenterPoint until the end of the month to specify what it’ll be doing to reduce or eliminate power outages in the event of another storm. He said that will include the company providing detailed plans to remove vegetation that still threatens power lines.
Abbott also said that CenterPoint didn’t have “an adequate number of workers pre-staged” before the storm hit.
CenterPoint, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment following the governor’s news conference, said in a Sunday news release that it expected power to be restored to 90% of its customers by the end of the day on Monday.
The utility has defended its preparation for the storm and said that it has brought in about 12,000 additional workers from outside Houston. It has said it would have been unsafe to preposition those workers inside the predicted storm impact area before Beryl made landfall.
Brad Tutunjian, vice president for regulatory policy for CenterPoint Energy, said last week that the extensive damage to trees and power poles hampered the ability to restore power quickly.
A post-Sunday on CenterPoint’s website from its president and CEO, Jason Wells, said that over 2,100 utility poles were damaged during the storm and over 18,600 trees had to be removed from power lines, which impacted over 75% of the utility’s distribution circuits.
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.
HOUSTON – Acting Governor Dan Patrick announced Friday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has approved the Major Disaster Declaration for Hurricane Beryl to include 15 Texas counties he requested for FEMA’s Individual Assistance program.
For this request to be approved, Texas and FEMA had to assess damaged homes, as required by federal law, before making the request, according to the release.
“I am pleased that FEMA took quick action on my request,” said Acting Governor Dan Patrick.
Texans who live in the following 15 counties can apply for FEMA disaster assistance online at disasterassistance.gov or by calling 800-621-3362:
Brazoria County
Chambers County
Galveston County
Harris County
Jackson County
Jasper County
Jefferson County
Liberty County
Matagorda County
Montgomery County
Orange County
Polk County
San Jacinto County
Walker County
Wharton County
On Friday, Acting Governor Patrick directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to request the inclusion of Fort Bend and Nacogdoches counties to FEMA’s Individual Assistance programs.
State officials will give an update on additional counties as they are added once a damage assessment is completed.
FEMA’s Individual Assistance program funding assists with expenses such as temporary housing, emergency home repairs, uninsured and underinsured personal property losses, disaster legal services, disaster unemployment assistance, and medical, dental, and funeral expenses caused by the disaster.
What if my county was not listed?
Additional counties may be requested for federal assistance following completion of damage assessments required by federal law and regulations. Texans are encouraged to report damage caused by Hurricane Beryl using the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) Individual State of Texas Assessment Tool (iSTAT) online survey by visiting damage.tdem.texas.gov. Reports can be voluntarily submitted in English and Spanish and are not a substitution for contacting your insurance company.
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.
It’s been chilly and rainy in metro Detroit since late Tuesday night, and it just keeps getting wetter.
Remnants of Hurricane Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 season, are causing heavy rain over the Midwest, which will persist in Southeast Michigan throughout Wednesday as the storm moves over Lake Erie.
A flood advisory has been issued for metro Detroit until 4 p.m., and a flood watch is in effect for most of Southeast Michigan until 8 p.m.
Prepare to take action if necessary, as excessive rainfall may cause flooding of low-lying streets, rivers, creeks, and streams. Some flooding has already occurred, so check your basements periodically, especially if you’re in a flood-prone area.
With the heavy rain, Wednesday’s temperatures have been primarily in the low 70s, which feels pretty cold following the early 90 degree weather that the area has experienced recently.
The air will be drier with highs in the upper 70s on Thursday.
By Friday, the heat and humidity will return, with parts of the weekend and early next week feeling like over 90 degrees.
Stay dry today, but you may want to get wet again soon since it’ll be so hot.
The Astros announced on Tuesday they would resume play at Minute Maid Park as usual beginning Tuesday evening with the series opener against the Marlins. The team had a fortuitous day off on Monday following a 6-3 road trip, but it appears all systems are go for their series this week ahead of next week’s All-Star festivities in Arlington.
The Astros are just two games back of the division leading Mariners who have struggled recently. The Rangers site 3.5 games back of the Astros and will be at Minute Maid later this week for a final three-game series before the break.
Jose Altuve (2B), Yordan Alvarez (DH) and Kyle Tucker (OF) were named to the American League All-Star team. Tucker remains on the IL with a shin bruise and is unlikely to play. Ronel Blanco, who has had a fantastic start to 2024 including a no hitter, was left off the roster, but could be added as an injury replacement.
Power started to come back for some of the millions of homes and businesses left in the dark when Hurricane Beryl slammed into the Houston area, while the weakened storm moved east, spawning suspected tornadoes and causing more damage.Beryl was blamed for killing several people in Texas on Monday and at least one person in Louisiana, officials said.After a peak Monday of more than 2.7 million customers around Houston without power, the numbers improved to more than 2.4 million homes and businesses lacking electricity by Monday night, according to PowerOutage.us. The lack of cooling to people’s homes, downed power lines and non-functioning traffic lights led officials to ask residents to stay home if possible.“Houstonians need to know we’re working around the clock so you will be safe,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Monday at a media briefing, urging residents to also know the dangers of high water, to stay hydrated and to check on their neighbors.Beryl later Monday weakened into a tropical depression with maximum wind speeds of about 35 mph. The storm still packed a punch, and the National Weather Service confirmed on social media Monday evening that tornadoes had been spotted in northeastern Louisiana. Bossier Sheriff Julian Whittington said in a Facebook post that a woman was killed in the Benton area when a tree fell on her home.Dozens of tornado warnings were issued in Louisiana and Arkansas on Monday evening and they continued into the night.While weakened, Beryl threatened to unleash harsh weather over several more states in coming days.Texas state and local officials warned it could take several days to fully restore power after Beryl came ashore as a Category 1 hurricane and toppled 10 transmission lines and knocked down trees that took down power lines.Beryl on Tuesday was far less powerful than the Category 5 behemoth that tore a deadly path of destruction through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean last weekend. But its winds and rains were still powerful enough to knock down hundreds of trees that had already been teetering in water-saturated earth, and strand dozens of cars on flooded roadways.“We’re not past any difficult conditions,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country.Patrick said CenterPoint Energy was bringing thousands of additional workers to restore power, with top priorities including nursing homes and assisted living centers.At least two people were killed when trees fell on homes in Texas, and a third person, a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department, was killed when he was trapped in flood waters under a highway overpass, Whitmire said.The loss of power was an all-too familiar experience for Houston: Powerful storms had just ripped through the area in May, killing eight people, leaving nearly 1 million without power and flooding numerous streets.Residents without power after Beryl were doing their best.“We haven’t really slept,” said Eva Costancio as she gazed at a large tree that had fallen across electric lines in her neighborhood in the Houston suburb of Rosenberg. Costancio said she had already been without power for several hours and worried that food in her refrigerator would be spoiled.“We are struggling to have food and losing that food would be difficult,” she said.Power crews were working to restore service as quickly as possible, an urgent priority for homes also left without air conditioning in the middle of summer. Temperatures in the 90s were expected Tuesday. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory that said the area heat index could reach 105 F.The state was opening cooling centers as well as food and water distribution centers, said Nim Kidd, chief of state emergency operations.Beryl’s rains pounded Houston and other areas of the coast on Monday, reclosing streets in neighborhoods that had already been washed out by previous storms. Television stations on Monday broadcast the dramatic rescue of a man who had climbed to the roof of his pickup truck after it got trapped in fast-flowing waters. Emergency crews used an extension ladder from a fire truck to drop him a life preserver and a tether before moving him to dry land.Houston officials reported at least 25 water rescues by Monday afternoon, mostly for people with vehicles stuck in floodwaters.Many streets and neighborhoods throughout Houston were littered with fallen branches and other debris. The buzz of chainsaws filled the air Monday afternoon as residents chopped up knocked-down trees and branches that had blocked streets and sidewalks.Patrick warned that flooding could last for days as rain continued to fall on already saturated ground.“This is not a one-day event,” he said.President Joe Biden was getting regular updates on the storm after it made landfall and called the Houston mayor on Monday, the White House said. He told the mayor his administration will make sure Texans have the resources they need to get through the storm and recovery.Several companies with refineries or industrial plants in the area reported that the power disruptions necessitated the flaring of gases at the facilities.Marathon Petroleum Corp. said it conducted a “safe combustion of excess gases” at its Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, but did not provide information on the amount of gas flared or how long it would continue. Formosa Plastics Corporation and Freeport LNG also reported flaring related to Beryl, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.Companies have 24 hours to share emissions data after the flaring stops, a representative from the TCEQ said in an email.The earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean on its way to Texas. In Jamaica, officials said Monday that island residents will have to contend with food shortages after Beryl destroyed over $6.4 million in crops and supporting infrastructure.Beryl was forecast to bring more strong rain and winds into additional states over the coming days. One of those, Missouri was already dealing with a wet summer. Heavy rains unrelated to the storm prompted several water rescues around the city of Columbia, where rivers and creeks were already high ahead of Beryl’s expected arrival on Tuesday.___Associated Press reporters Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas; Corey Williams in Detroit; Julie Walker in New York; Melina Walling in Chicago; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.
HOUSTON —
Power started to come back for some of the millions of homes and businesses left in the dark when Hurricane Beryl slammed into the Houston area, while the weakened storm moved east, spawning suspected tornadoes and causing more damage.
Beryl was blamed for killing several people in Texas on Monday and at least one person in Louisiana, officials said.
After a peak Monday of more than 2.7 million customers around Houston without power, the numbers improved to more than 2.4 million homes and businesses lacking electricity by Monday night, according to PowerOutage.us. The lack of cooling to people’s homes, downed power lines and non-functioning traffic lights led officials to ask residents to stay home if possible.
“Houstonians need to know we’re working around the clock so you will be safe,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Monday at a media briefing, urging residents to also know the dangers of high water, to stay hydrated and to check on their neighbors.
Beryl later Monday weakened into a tropical depression with maximum wind speeds of about 35 mph. The storm still packed a punch, and the National Weather Service confirmed on social media Monday evening that tornadoes had been spotted in northeastern Louisiana. Bossier Sheriff Julian Whittington said in a Facebook post that a woman was killed in the Benton area when a tree fell on her home.
Dozens of tornado warnings were issued in Louisiana and Arkansas on Monday evening and they continued into the night.
While weakened, Beryl threatened to unleash harsh weather over several more states in coming days.
Texas state and local officials warned it could take several days to fully restore power after Beryl came ashore as a Category 1 hurricane and toppled 10 transmission lines and knocked down trees that took down power lines.
Beryl on Tuesday was far less powerful than the Category 5 behemoth that tore a deadly path of destruction through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean last weekend. But its winds and rains were still powerful enough to knock down hundreds of trees that had already been teetering in water-saturated earth, and strand dozens of cars on flooded roadways.
“We’re not past any difficult conditions,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is out of the country.
Patrick said CenterPoint Energy was bringing thousands of additional workers to restore power, with top priorities including nursing homes and assisted living centers.
At least two people were killed when trees fell on homes in Texas, and a third person, a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department, was killed when he was trapped in flood waters under a highway overpass, Whitmire said.
The loss of power was an all-too familiar experience for Houston: Powerful storms had just ripped through the area in May, killing eight people, leaving nearly 1 million without power and flooding numerous streets.
Residents without power after Beryl were doing their best.
“We haven’t really slept,” said Eva Costancio as she gazed at a large tree that had fallen across electric lines in her neighborhood in the Houston suburb of Rosenberg. Costancio said she had already been without power for several hours and worried that food in her refrigerator would be spoiled.
“We are struggling to have food and losing that food would be difficult,” she said.
Power crews were working to restore service as quickly as possible, an urgent priority for homes also left without air conditioning in the middle of summer. Temperatures in the 90s were expected Tuesday. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory that said the area heat index could reach 105 F.
The state was opening cooling centers as well as food and water distribution centers, said Nim Kidd, chief of state emergency operations.
Beryl’s rains pounded Houston and other areas of the coast on Monday, reclosing streets in neighborhoods that had already been washed out by previous storms. Television stations on Monday broadcast the dramatic rescue of a man who had climbed to the roof of his pickup truck after it got trapped in fast-flowing waters. Emergency crews used an extension ladder from a fire truck to drop him a life preserver and a tether before moving him to dry land.
Houston officials reported at least 25 water rescues by Monday afternoon, mostly for people with vehicles stuck in floodwaters.
Many streets and neighborhoods throughout Houston were littered with fallen branches and other debris. The buzz of chainsaws filled the air Monday afternoon as residents chopped up knocked-down trees and branches that had blocked streets and sidewalks.
Patrick warned that flooding could last for days as rain continued to fall on already saturated ground.
“This is not a one-day event,” he said.
President Joe Biden was getting regular updates on the storm after it made landfall and called the Houston mayor on Monday, the White House said. He told the mayor his administration will make sure Texans have the resources they need to get through the storm and recovery.
Several companies with refineries or industrial plants in the area reported that the power disruptions necessitated the flaring of gases at the facilities.
Marathon Petroleum Corp. said it conducted a “safe combustion of excess gases” at its Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, but did not provide information on the amount of gas flared or how long it would continue. Formosa Plastics Corporation and Freeport LNG also reported flaring related to Beryl, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Companies have 24 hours to share emissions data after the flaring stops, a representative from the TCEQ said in an email.
The earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean on its way to Texas. In Jamaica, officials said Monday that island residents will have to contend with food shortages after Beryl destroyed over $6.4 million in crops and supporting infrastructure.
Beryl was forecast to bring more strong rain and winds into additional states over the coming days. One of those, Missouri was already dealing with a wet summer. Heavy rains unrelated to the storm prompted several water rescues around the city of Columbia, where rivers and creeks were already high ahead of Beryl’s expected arrival on Tuesday.
___
Associated Press reporters Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas; Corey Williams in Detroit; Julie Walker in New York; Melina Walling in Chicago; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.
HOUSTON – If you’re one of the millions of residents without power in the Houston area, then you may be looking for fresh and hot food to eat as you bare through Hurricane Beryl’s aftermath.
I was able to spot an open Whataburger, located at 7411 Southwest Fwy., Monday evening.
This is one of a few locations that have opened their doors as many businesses and homes were left without power while CenterPoint Energy works to restore about 1.6 million customers — and that’s just in Harris County.
Whataburger, located at 7411 Southwest Fwy., opens hours after Hurricane Beryl leave millions without power on July 8, 2024. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)
I asked the two hardworking employees how long are they opened and they stated, “We’re open for 24 hours.” I was even told the store’s operational manager took off his business attire and jumped into action to help his employees on the grill.
The lines were wrapped around the store. The drive-thru option is only available for now.
While this location is the only one we found open in southwest Houston, there may be more and we want to help other families find some open spots they may not be aware of.
Leave a comment below of any restaurants or food trucks that are open for business to help your fellow neighbors across the Houston area.
Here’s a list from viewers:
Raising Canes on Westheimer at Voss
T Bone Tom’s in Kemah
Cici’s pizza on Bellaire and Rampart
Whataburger at 2121 FM 2920 Spring, Texas
Pizza Hut at 290 and Jones Road
Jack in the Box at 290 and Jones Road
Chick- Fil-A on 99 and Morton Road
Lunas Pizzeria on Richmond and Kirby
Little Woodrow’s in Tomball
Chili’s on 290 at Spring Cypress
Sonic on Mason Road and Highland Knolls
KFC on Mason Road and Highland Knolls
Whataburger at Jones Road and 290 Fwy
Papa John’s Canal at Lockwood
McDonald’s on Beltway and West Lake Houston
Mama Juanita’s on 242 in The Woodlands
McDonald’s on FM 1464 and Bellaire
Shake Shack off Greenhouse and I-10
Burger King on 2234 and Independence in Missouri City
The Cheesecake Factory at Memorial City Mall (opens 11 a.m. Tuesday)
We hope to update this story with a list of locations from viewers.
Whataburger, located at 7411 Southwest Fwy., opens hours after Hurricane Beryl leave millions without power on July 8, 2024. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)Whataburger, located at 7411 Southwest Fwy., opens hours after Hurricane Beryl leave millions without power on July 8, 2024. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)Whataburger, located at 7411 Southwest Fwy., opens hours after Hurricane Beryl leave millions without power on July 8, 2024. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)Whataburger, located at 7411 Southwest Fwy., opens hours after Hurricane Beryl leave millions without power on July 8, 2024. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)Whataburger, located at 7411 Southwest Fwy., opens hours after Hurricane Beryl leave millions without power on July 8, 2024. (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.)
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
MATAGORDA, Texas — Power outages are mounting along the Texas coast after Beryl came ashore Monday and lashed Houston with heavy rains and powerful winds as the storm moved inland.
More than 1 million homes and businesses were without power hours after Beryl made landfall, according to CenterPoint Energy in Houston. High waters quickly began to close streets across Houston and flood warnings were in effect across a wide stretch of the Texas coast.
The National Weather Service expected Beryl to weaken to a tropical storm Monday and a tropical depression Tuesday, forecasting a turn to the northeast and increase in speed Monday night and Tuesday. The storm reached the U.S. after leaving a trail of destruction over the last week in Mexico and the Caribbean.
The storm’s center hit land as a Category 1 hurricane around 4 a.m. about 85 miles southwest of Houston with top sustained winds of 80 mph (128.7 kph) while moving north at 12 mph (19.3 kph), the National Weather Service reported. On Monday morning, the storm had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph).
High waters quickly began closing roads around Houston, which was again under flood warnings after heavy storms in recent months washed out neighborhoods and knocked out power across the nation’s fourth-largest city.
More than 1,000 flights have been canceled at Houston’s two airports, according to tracking data from FlightAware.
Beryl dumped soaking rains across Houston after coming ashore and was expected to bring damaging winds into East Texas, near Louisiana, as the storm pushed north after making landfall.
“Beryl’s moving inland but this is not the end of the story yet,” said Jack Beven, senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.
Beryl strengthened and became a hurricane again late Sunday. The storm had weakened after leaving a path of deadly destruction through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean.
A hurricane warning remains in effect for the Texas coast from Mesquite Bay north to Port Bolivar, the center said.
The storm’s center is expected to move over eastern Texas on Monday and then through the lower Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley on Tuesday and Wednesday, the weather service said.
People on the Texas coast boarded up windows and left beach towns under an evacuation order. As the storm neared the coast Sunday, Texas officials warned of power outages and flooding but also expressed worry that not enough residents and beach vacationers in Beryl’s path had heeded warnings to leave.
“One of the things that kind of trigger our concern a little bit, we’ve looked at all of the roads leaving the coast and the maps are still green,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is serving as the state’s acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is travelling overseas. “So we don’t see many people leaving.”
Tropical storm winds extended 115 miles (185 kilometers) from the center and the hurricane center warned residents to be prepared for possible flash flooding in parts of middle, upper and eastern Texas as well as Arkansas as the storm gradually turns to the north and then northeast later Monday.
Along the Texas coast, many residents and business owners took the typical storm precautions but also expressed uncertainty about the storm’s intensity.
In Port Lavaca, Jimmy May fastened plywood over the windows of his electrical supply company and said he wasn’t concerned about the possible storm surge. He recalled his business had escaped flooding in a previous hurricane that brought a 20-foot (6-meter) storm surge.
“In town, you know, if you’re in the low-lying areas, obviously, you need to get out of there,” he said.
At the nearby marina, Percy Roberts showed his neighbor Ken Waller how to properly secure his boat as heavy winds rolled in from the bay Sunday evening.
“This is actually going to be the first hurricane I’m going to be experiencing,” Waller said, noting he is a little nervous but feels safe following Roberts’ lead. “Pray for the best but expect the worst, I guess.”
The earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean on its way to Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows and roofs with devastating winds and storm surge fueled by the Atlantic’s record warmth.
Three times during its one week of life, Beryl has gained 35 mph (56 kph) in wind speed in 24 hours or less, the official weather service definition of rapid intensification.
Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm indicates the hot water of the Atlantic and Caribbean and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the rest of the storm season, experts said.
Texas officials warned people along the entire coastline to prepare for possible flooding, heavy rain and wind. The hurricane warning extended from Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, to Sargent, south of Houston.
Beryl lurked as another potential heavy rain event for Houston, where storms in recent months have knocked out power across the nation’s fourth-largest city and flooded neighborhoods. A flash flood watch was in effect for a wide swath of the Texas coast, where forecasters expected Beryl to dump as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain in some areas.
Potential storm surges between 4 and 7 feet (1.22 and 2.13 meters) above ground level were forecast around Matagorda. The warnings extended to the same coastal areas where Hurricane Harvey came ashore in 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane, far more powerful than Beryl’s expected intensity by the time the storm reaches landfall.
Those looking to catch a flight out of the area found a closing window for air travel as Beryl moved closer. Hundreds of flights from Houston’s two major commercial airports were delayed by midafternoon Sunday and dozens more canceled, according to FlightAware data.
In Corpus Christi, officials asked visitors to cut their trips short and return home early if possible. Residents were advised to secure homes by boarding up windows if necessary and using sandbags to guard against possible flooding.
The White House said Sunday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent emergency responders, search-and-rescue teams, bottled water and other resources along the coast.
Several coastal counties called for voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas that are prone to flooding. Local officials also banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling on the Fourth of July holiday weekend to move recreational vehicles from coastal parks.
Beryl battered Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane last week, toppling trees but causing no injuries or deaths before weakening to a tropical storm as it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula.
Before hitting Mexico, Beryl wrought destruction in Jamaica, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Three people were reported dead in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Jamaica.
___
Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. Associated Press reporters Margery A. Beck in Omaha, Nebraska, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Julie Walker in New York contributed.
