A cold front is moving into Houston this weekend, but the area’s utility infrastructure operator, CenterPoint Energy, does not expect any major outages. The company has been working to improve its infrastructure and communication with the public after facing backlash following Hurricane Beryl, which brought widespread outages to the Houston area.<\/p>\n
CenterPoint’s vice president of resilience and capital delivery, Nathan Brownell, explained that high winds and icy precipitation tend to damage power lines and poles, rather than extreme temperatures. While lows could hit the 20s this weekend, Houston is not expected to see freezing precipitation, which reduces the risk of outages.<\/p>\n
Despite the low risk, CenterPoint is preparing for any potential outages. "Regardless, we’re going to be focused on our customers," Brownell said. "So if customers do have an outage over the weekend, we’re going to be quickly and safely making sure that we get those outages back on." The company has put renewed focus on weatherizing its power lines and other infrastructure, along with increasing communications to the public.<\/p>\n
Following increased government oversight and public pressure, CenterPoint reached a $3.2 billion resiliency plan settlement with several Houston-area cities after Hurricane Beryl. "We did a lot of listening to our customers, to our elected officials, to our regulators and we took a lot of that feedback to heart," Brownell said. The company is now taking a more proactive approach to maintaining its infrastructure and communicating with the public.<\/p>\n
A survey conducted by Rice University Professor Mark Jones through the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs last year found an overwhelmingly negative view of CenterPoint among Harris County voters. However, Jones believes that the company’s efforts to strengthen its infrastructure and communicate with the public during extreme weather events will improve its favorability ratings over time. "The more we have these tests \u2013 whether it’s a winter storm or a summer hurricane \u2013 and the lights stay on, the higher CenterPoint’s favorability ratings are going to go," he said.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, while the upcoming cold front poses some risks to the power grid, CenterPoint Energy is well-prepared to handle any potential outages. The company’s renewed focus on infrastructure and communication has improved its ability to respond to extreme weather events, and its efforts to engage with the public will likely improve its reputation over time. As the company continues to work to strengthen its infrastructure and communicate effectively with the public, it is likely that its favorability ratings will continue to improve, and the community will have increased confidence in its ability to provide reliable power during extreme weather events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to the Situation A cold front is moving into Houston this weekend, but the area’s utility infrastructure operator, CenterPoint Energy, does not expect any major outages. The company has been working to improve its infrastructure and communication with the public after facing backlash following Hurricane Beryl, which brought widespread outages to the Houston area. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.houstonpublicmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22132537\/MicrosoftTeams-image-1500x1080.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13276,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273\/revisions\/13276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}