(15 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Houston – 15 July 2024
1. Tracking shots of Gov. Greg Abbott, (R) Texas, and Houston Mayor John Whitmire (D) Texas, arrive at a news conference
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Gov. Greg Abbott, (R) Texas:
"It is hurricane season in the state of Texas, that means that everybody who lives on or near the coast. Whether you are an individual, whether you are a government, whether you are a power provider, everyone has a duty to be prepared to respond to wherever that storm lands."
3. Wide of presser
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Gov. Greg Abbott, (R) Texas:
"This time is different is different, it is different because of the lack of power. The lack of power provided by CenterPoint continues to compromise compromised lives here in the greater Houston Harris County area."
++SEPARATED BY BLACK FRAMES++
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Gov. Greg Abbott, (R) Texas:
"The big problem that remains the big problem that is the cause of most everything else I’ve talked about already, is the problem that CenterPoint has completely dropped the ball with regard to getting power back on."
6. Mid of Gov. Greg Abbott, (R) Texas, and Houston Mayor John Whitmire (D) Texas
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Gov. Greg Abbott, (R) Texas:
"The clock is ticking for CenterPoint to step up and get the job done. I know they’re still responding to the current storm. However, they’re making a huge mistake. If, at this very same time, they’re not preparing answers to the questions I laid out yesterday with the expectation that if they do not get that information to me, I will be prepared to swiftly issue an executive order establishing the guidelines that I think are most important to ensure that there will not be another disaster caused by lack of power in this region."
8. Wide end of presser
STORYLINE:
With around 270,000 homes and businesses still without power in the Houston area almost a week after Hurricane Beryl hit Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday said he’s demanding an investigation into the response of the utility that serves the area as well as answers about its preparations for upcoming storms.
“Power companies along the Gulf Coast must be prepared to deal with hurricanes, to state the obvious,” Abbott said at his first news conference about Beryl since returning to the state from an economic development trip to Asia.
While CenterPoint Energy has restored power to about 2 million customers since the storm hit on July 8, the slow pace of recovery has put the utility, which provides electricity to the nation’s fourth-largest city, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared for the storm that left people without air conditioning in the searing summer heat.
Abbott said he was sending a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas requiring it to investigate why restoration has taken so long and what must be done to fix it. In the Houston area, Beryl toppled transmission lines, uprooted trees and snapped branches that crashed into power lines.
With months of hurricane season left, Abbott said he’s giving CenterPoint until the end of the month to specify what it’ll be doing to reduce or eliminate power outages in the event of another storm. He said that will include the company providing detailed plans to remove vegetation that still threatens power lines.
Abbott also said that CenterPoint didn’t have “an adequate number of workers pre-staged" before the storm hit.
CenterPoint also said Sunday that it’s been “investing for years” to strengthen the area’s resilience to such storms.
AP Video by Lekan Oyekanmi
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