Texas governor demands action from CenterPoint over power failures

(Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday he would require CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:) to take immediate action to improve its hurricane preparation and response efforts to power outages reported in the greater Houston area due to Hurricane Beryl.

Abbott said he also asked the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas to launch an investigation into the company over its failure to restore power promptly after the hurricane.

“To help Texans in the greater Houston area and to avoid a repeat of unacceptable power outages, I will give CenterPoint until the end of the month to provide my office with specific actions to address power outages and reduce the possibility that power will be lost during a severe weather event,” Abbott said during a press conference in Houston.

Abbott said he would issue an executive order to impose actions on CenterPoint geared to keep power on if the company failed to comply.

CenterPoint, the largest power provider in Texas, said it was able to restore power to more than 85%, or 1.9 million, of its impacted customers by Sunday.

There are still about 267,797 CenterPoint customers without power, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

Beryl, the earliest Category 5 storm on record, made landfall near the coastal town of Matagorda last Monday, knocking out power to about 2.7 million homes and businesses in Texas.

CenterPoint expects to restore power to 90% of all impacted customers on Monday and is committed to doing a thorough review of its response to power outages, it said in a statement following Abbott’s press conference.