Houstonist: Power Outage Updates

Jim Parsons

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:36:55 -0600

As massive as job as they have to do, I think asking for constant updates and promises as to when such-and-such will happen is unrealistic. Sure, everyone would like to have electricity restored immediately, but that's obviously not going to happen. I think thousands of people working in overlapping 16-hour shifts is about as much as we can ask for, given that many local power workers have their own problems to deal with.

ward

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:53:43 -0600

The city of Houston has given them permission to maintain the city's power grid. So the city of Houston has some recourse if they're not doing their job. They're also a for-profit company, so they're not working as hard as they can, they're working as hard as is profitable. Of course they could work harder, but it would mean more equipment and paying more overtime to employees. So the question then becomes, are they working as hard as they are obligated to by their contract with the City? In order to ensure that this is the case, and thus that we are getting power back as quickly as they can be required to do so, somebody needs to be pushing them. Finally, their updates and schedules are so uninformative as to be useless. It's obvious that they have more detailed plans than what they've shown the public. This lack of transparency betrays either incompetence or that they're hiding something. Neither of those is a good thing.

MaryJane

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:11:47 -0600

It's not just Centerpoint, we have crews from as far away as Canada working 16 hour shifts to get us online. Some are from states that have now lost power, but, they remain here to bring us up. I'm grateful for them all. My yard is a game of Pick Up Sticks (I am wondering what contract? Centerpoint is repairing it's infrastructure, don't like 'em - go solar).

Jim Parsons

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:10:07 -0600

Tinkertoys! I wondered why the light poles in my neighborhood were so colorful. Of course, my house is made of Lincoln Logs, so this isn't entirely unexpected ...

jporter

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:45:32 -0600

An "Act of God" knocked out power to 93% of the Centerpoint service area. Personally, I hope that Mayor White won't renew God's contract. In all seriousness, this is a huge undertaking in a huge service area. And, full disclosure, I have power, so I don't have the frustration that I might have otherwise. But, the city of Houston encompasses 600 square miles. The Centerpoint service area is much larger than that. 93% of the service area was knocked offline by downed trees and poles and blown transformers and whatnot. Maybe it's a fair question to ask why so much of our service area is served by wires atop tinkertoys, but that's what we've got, and that's going to take some time to repair.

ward

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:59:08 -0600

I'll start by saying that yes, I am lucky to be alive, healthy, and to have my property relatively undamaged. But you can skip giving me the CenterPoint sob story. Sure, I'll be courteous to the employees that eventually work on my power, whenever that is. Until then, they're doing their job (slowly), and I owe them nothing. I don't feel the least bit sorry if they're tired; they're likely being quite well compensated. Besides, if they're a little sleepy, they have nobody to blame but CenterPoint, who should have had out-of-state workers here sooner and in much higher numbers than they did. Taking weeks to do this is just unacceptable. I hope Mayor White declines to renew their contract over this fiasco.