On Tuesday, Mayor John Whitmire took a helicopter ride to survey the damage in the city and then called a press conference to talk about the biggest danger ahead, which most people would agree is the lack of power.
Not only are local hospitals getting backed up with patients they don’t want to release to homes without power, but residents are increasingly testy about the lack of air conditioning while temperatures soar. It doesn’t help any that for some reason cell phones and access to the internet are out across the area. So how people are supposed to get the messages being handed out is anyone’s guess.
Houston ISD announced it would also be closed on Wednesday, another indicator of the seriousness of the damage that hit the area. Superintendent Mike Miles is well known for his belief that children do best by being in school even following severe weather events.
And then there’s the scarcity of traffic lights and the propensity for some predators to come out at night.
“We did not anticipate the amount of power we would lose. And quite frankly the city is very dark right now,” Acting Chief Larry Satterwhite said, adding at another point: “We did not anticipate is the magnitude of the power outage our No. 1 problem was power outages it creates dangerous situations.
He and the other officials echoed each other that people need to stay off the streets especially at night.
As evidenced by media questions following the parade of speakers including Acting Governor Dan Patrick, the natives are restless. Many of those questions were lobbed at Brad Tutenjian, CenterPoint Energy’s vice president of Electric Distribution Operations and Power Delivery who repeatedly said how hard they were working.
As it turns out, the thousands of linemen brought in from other states to help out with Beryl didn’t start work right away because they had to be trained. Even the local CenterPoint crews couldn’t start until after Beryl left the immediate area, sometime around 3 p.m. Monday. Understandable but not great to hear for what was initially projected to be a two-day period at most without power.
Tutenjiam alternated between saying CenterPoint was completely prepared for Beryl and arguing that it caught them by surprise both in its location and strength. To date, he said, about 650,000 customers have seen their power restored with the goal of having a total of 1 million back in service by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Of course that still leaves another 1.6 million in the area who will remain without power. In texts and robo calls Tuesday, CenterPoint spread the word that it would be concentrating on fire and police facilities as well as hospitals most immediately and everyone else could expect to wait several more days without power.
“We’re going to push CenterPoint to do everything possible,” Whitmire proclaimed.
As for the city’s preparations, which have been much touted for its beefed up training in water rescue for police and fire and additional rescue equipment, apparently it wasn’t discovered until the middle of Beryl that nine fire stations didn’t have backup generators and are/were (?) out of commission until regular power was restored.
Whitmire blamed the lack of backups on the city’s prior administration (Mayor Sylvester Turner) and vowed that would be corrected. “That’s what we inherited and that’s what we’re here to fix.”
The city has continued to open up additional cooling centers to meet the increasing demand. In addition, the backed up hospital problem will be solved Patrick said by opening up NRG Stadium “that will eventually have 250 beds — this bit of good news apparently ignoring the report from NRG Tuesday that its roof was damaged during Beryl.
Patrick reported that he’d talked with President Biden Tuesday, asked for and was granted an Emergency Disaster Declaration which would provide reimbursement for to 75 percent of the debris cleanup costs. He insisted that there was “no delay from the White House, no delay from us: in getting this declaration, despite a report in the Houston Chronicle that Biden said he couldn’t get hold of either Abbott (who is out of the country on aa trade tour through Asia) or Patrick.
And while Whitmire has gone out of his way to extoll all of what he calls unprecedented cooperation at all levels it still paints an awkward picture that County Commissioners Adrian Garcia and Tom Ramsey attend the mayoral press conferences while County Judge Lina Hidalgo is absent
Meanwhile piles of debris were everywhere, whether picked up by conscientious homeowners and work crews or just left on the side of the roads and littered across properties.
Apparently many people are less and less inclined to rely upon CenterPoint coming to their rescue.
Lines for generators were long and longer at Lowe’s, Home Depot and the like to purchase portable units, in many cases waiting in lines for one or two hours to buy them. Restoration of traffic lights was sporadic and their absence didn’t bring out the best among Houston drivers still anxious to get somewhere else. Some residents took long country drives to find cell service which had significant problems in the area.
Communications suffered as well, If you don’t have power for your TV and your cell phone and internet aren’t working, how do you find out what’s going on?
The private media company AccuWeather Tuesday announced a preliminary estimate of the damage and the economic loss from Beryl across the United States and set it at $28-$32 Billion (yes with a B).
