Keeping the power on can be the difference between life and death, a scenario bearing out this week in Houston as temperatures spike while hundreds of thousands of people suffer through brutal heat without air conditioning. The city was struck by massive back-to-back storms: A powerful derecho in May blew out skyscraper windows and left downtown Houston dark. Then Category 1 Beryl swept through in an unusually early start to hurricane season, knocking out power for more than 2 million customers.
Centerpoint worked to restore power after 15 extreme weather events between 2019 to 2023. “In addition to extreme weather, the company’s service area also experiences heavy precipitation and extreme temperatures,” the company wrote in the report. “Many of the resiliency measures in the company’s resiliency plan will address and mitigate the impacts of extreme weather-related resiliency events.