There is growing anger in Texas over the power outages after Hurricane Beryl. Some areas are still without power nearly two weeks after landfall, and there are widespread calls for investigations and heads to roll. Over three million people in the Houston area were without power for an extended period, and the utility, CenterPoint, so far has only offered up some pretty lame explanations. So the question is, how does this compare with other landfalls, and is the outrage justified or was CenterPoint just unlucky?
Beryl was a 70 knot hurricane at Texas landfall. That is about 80mph, or a Saffir Simpson Category One storm. The NOAA description for this wind range says “Extensive damage to power lines and poles likely will result in power outages that could last a few to several days.” My more precise TAOS(tm) damage estimation algorithms paint a more nuanced picture. At these wind speeds, we would expect to see outages primarily due to tree limbs and as the NOAA description says, power lines and poles – but with some caveats. Most hurricane prone areas, especially those hit in the last decade or so, should have upgraded their lines and poles. But let’s take a closer look at the details. Here is a schematic of the grid (lifted from the Wikipedia article on the transmission system):
With my usual caveat of “unless something breaks that shouldn’t”, typically a Category One storm only damages the part in green, and in most cases, that damage is limited to secondary customers (the 120/240 part of the system). Furthermore, that damage is usually in areas with lots of trees, as the lines and infrastructure themselves typically won’t fail in an 80mph wind, it is usually the result of something else hitting the lines. But as usual it’s more complicated than that. Underground distribution lines are of course far less vulnerable to winds, trees (except trees being uprooted and pulling the lines up, which usually only happens if the soil is saturated and higher winds), and debris. So urban areas tend to fare a bit better than suburban or rural areas. We can see exactly that in this NOAA satellite comparison of night time lights before and after the storm:
I saw a report that a CenterPoint representative blamed trees. That feels a bit lame to me. Any good utility in a hurricane prone area – and Houston certainly qualifies for that! – should have a good tree trimming and line maintenance program. (Note I said good, as in designed by arborists and electrical engineers working in concert, not the random butchery some utilities inflict on urban forests, looking at you Georgia Power …). As I often say, there is really no such thing as a natural disaster, only natural events we fail to anticipate, plan for, or simply decide not to protect ourselves against for one reason or another. Not having a good tree maintenance program is unforgivable on the Southeast coast.
Bottom line: I think an investigation of CenterPoint is justified. It may be that the grid was simply unlucky – nature can throw us curves some times, so I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions. But the level of outages experienced in the Houston area are well beyond what we should have seen from a storm like Beryl, and the people of Texas deserve some answers.
Good summary. CenterPoint’s handling of the aftermath has been terrible, both from an operational and public relations standpoint. The investigations are already underway.
As I mentioned in a comment to a previous post, it’s clear even at this point that CenterPoint (power porvider for about 90% or so of the Houston area) and Entergy Texas (the other 10%) both were caught off guard by the extent of damage from the storm and thus had inadequate personnel on the ground initially.
But the experience of The Woodlands is indicative of serious problems at CenterPoint. The Woodlands is a Houston suburb 30 miles north of downtown Houston. It is a master-planned community originanlly developed by the late George Mitchell. Almost exactly opposite for most of the Houston area, Entergy Texas provides power for probably 95% of The Woodlands and Centerpoint provides power for the balance.
As the name implies, The Woodlands is heavily-forested and the extent of uprooted trees and downed branches was certainly unusually high for a storm of this relatively low strength. For example, there are 108 holes of golf courses that weave through The Woodlands; as of yesterday, only 63 of those 108 holes are open for play because downed tree removal operations are still ongoing on the balance of the holes.
However, The Woodlands is different from most of the Houston area in that most of its distribution lines are underground. Most of The Woodlands lost power at 10 am during the day of the storm (Monday July 8th) and Entergy restored power to almost all the areas that it handles in The Woodlands during the night of Tuesday (July 9th) and the early morning of Wednesday (July 10th). So, a power outage of 35-45 hours for most residents of The Woodlands.
In comparison, for the relatively small portion of The Woodlands handled by CenterPoint, a small part lost power for only a few hours, but the rest of CenterPoint’s customers in The Woodlands were without power for over a week. Reflecting CenterPoint’s Exxon Valdez spill-level of public relations, there has not been a public statement explaining why it took Centerpoint so much longer than Entergy Texas to restore power in the same area.
This is not to say that Entergy Texas is without fault. It took Entergy Texas longer to restore some areas that it services near The Woodlands. But overall, Entergy Texas’ performance in restoring power was far superior to that of CenterPoint.
Thanks so much for the insider, on the ground perspective! Given all of the factors (soil moisture, tree cover, etc, all of which the models incorporate) I would have expected the outages in a traditional above-ground system to have lasted maybe 96 hours for the majority of customers, with only a small percentage going beyond 144 hours (6 days). You’re always going to have spots that take longer to restore based on bad luck (multiple failures), but there really shouldn’t have been widespread, persistent outages from this thing.
I agree with you about Georgia Power. Such wanton destruction of trees just on the cutting of limbs out of the middles of oak trees to cutting limbs on just one side. They are insuring future destruction and work.
I am a Savannah transplant to Houston. Centerpoint does not maintain its system like it should. They have neglected to trim vegetation around the power lines and many of the poles are old and leaning over.
While proper maintenance of equipment and power line rights-of-way are important, power companies know that the best maintenance programs won’t prevent power outages when the wind exceeds about 50 MPH.
The most important thing is to be ready to assess damage and make repairs quickly after the storm passes. Over the years, I have found Entergy to be very responsive in that regard. Their response to Bitch Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana was superlative. (No experience with Centerpoint.)
After a catastrophe, utilities typically bring in extra manpower and equipment from other regions and attack the problem day and night. The linemen who come in are happy to do it in spite of the hazards because they make a ton of overtime.
The recover activity is very expensive, but companies know that this is part of the cost of doing business and being a reliable supplier.
If management tries to save on recovery costs, unnecessary delays are the result.