Storm recovery continues in Houston after Hurricane Beryl

Hurricane Beryl: Houston storm recovery

As state officials accused President Biden of trying to turn the crisis into a political issue, the top executives from several power providers were in Austin for a special storm response hearing before the Public Utility Commission.

HOUSTON - Long lines at the gas pumps and downed power lines along the roadways continued to be seen across the Houston metro area.

For many residents, the cooling locations that were set up provide the most visible sign of relief efforts in place.

On Thursday, in an update on the state's recovery response, officials said the main priority for the emergency generators brought to town was powering hospitals, water plants and traffic lights.

TDEM Chief Nim Kidd also hit back at President Joe Biden’s statement that state leaders were hard to reach earlier this week, which Biden claimed slowed the release of federal aid to Texas.

"It embarrasses me, and it saddens me to the point that this president has weaponized the federal government to enrage our citizens here, to thinking that I am not doing my job, and that our governor is not doing his job. And that's a lie," said Chief Kidd.

FOX 7 Austin's request to the White House for a response was not answered.

However, in a social media post Texas Gov. Greg Abbott noted the Biden Administration has reduced the number of counties in the original federal disaster declaration to 67, down from 121 counties.

Gov. Abbott speaks on Biden's claim

A "bizarre unforced error" is how Governor Greg Abbott described President Biden’s claim that federal hurricane aid to Texas was delayed because state leaders were unavailable to take his call.

The governor, in an exclusive interview with FOX 7 Austin Wednesday, said this about President Biden.

"I know for an absolute 100% certainty, the only person who dropped the ball is Joe Biden by making up some bizarre lie. And why he would do that? I have no idea," said Abbott.

As for the storm response, Gov. Abbott followed through with his promise to order a study on why the power goes out in Houston after big storms hit. The first step involved a hearing before the Texas Public Utility Commission on Thursday morning.

"Will cast a wide net initially. You know, we got to figure out what went wrong, what can be improved," said PUC Chairman Thomas Gleeson.

Executives from four Texas power providers testified and PUC Commissioners were told the lights are coming back on.

More than 90% of customers along the coastline served by AP Texas now have power, according to utility VP Chad Burnett.

Eli Viamontes, president and CEO of Entergy, said the utility had a little more than 100,000 customers offline between College Station and Beaumont.

Stacey Whitehurst with Texas-New Mexico Power said their outage number for customers south of Houston and in Brazoria is around 30,000 as of Thursday morning.

However, in Houston, progress is going slower. Jason Ryan with CenterPoint said the storm caused significant damage to utility poles and lines. That limited the use of backup power generation units.

"So, if this storm, which didn't happen this time, if this storm had caused significant transmission level damage and left substations without power, but circuits that could take power. That's when these 30-megawatt units could be used in a storm scenario. That's not this storm," said Ryan.

Hurricane Beryl aftermath

Pressure is mounting on Houston's power utility as millions still don't have electricity nearly four days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall

In defense of their response, officials with CenterPoint noted they have never restored more than a million customers this fast after a hurricane. Doing that, according to Ryan, cannot be done without having a significant response plan in place.

Chairman Gleeson said a report will be done for state lawmakers to consider during the upcoming legislative session.

"This commission, you know, the governor, legislative leadership, the speaker and the lieutenant governor expect improvements in all of this. And I know the residents deserve and demand that. And so, we'll be working very closely with you and all the utilities and other folks that we can help bring their expertise and understanding to bear to make sure that we help mitigate the impact of future storms like this," said Gleeson.

As for the job at hand, CenterPoint hopes to bring the number of outages to 500,000 by Sunday. Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, after hearing that assessment, called it unacceptable.

"But right now, I want every person at CenterPoint to have one job, get the power back on. We'll talk about what happened before the storm later. Just get the power back on," said Patrick.

When that will happen remains unknown.