Yes, a major hurricane blew through Texas. We all understand that. But it's been a week and the power is still out in significant portions of the Houston area. What is taking so long? Governor Greg Abbott has returned from his diplomatic visit to Asia and his patience is clearly wearing thin. This has brought renewed attention to CenterPoint Energy, the company responsible for managing and maintaining the power grid in the region. Abbott is not only demanding that they get the power back online, but they quickly prepare and submit plans that will allow them to do better in the future. If they fail to comply, he is threatening to impose his own requirements on the company via executive action. You can't really blame him. This situation is long past the point of being ridiculous and is turning significantly dangerous.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday slammed utility CenterPoint Energy, which has yet to restore power for hundreds of thousands of customers in the Houston area, and ordered the company to take steps to improve power reliability.

In his first public appearance since returning from a pre-planned economic development trip to Asia, the governor asked CenterPoint to send his office a detailed plan by the end of the month outlining how it will prepare differently for future hurricanes this season. Abbott said the plan must include better preparation for linemen, increasing the number of workers to restore power and trimming trees that could fall on power lines.

If CenterPoint fails to comply with his request, the governor said he will issue an executive order imposing his own requirements on the company.

This situation is simply unacceptable. Karen Townsend, one of our writers, lives in the suburbs of Houston and a full week later we still haven't heard from her since an hour or so after Beryl blew into town and her power was knocked out. She's still offline and we haven't even been able to check and see if she's okay. Everyone who lives in areas prone to hurricanes knows that they should keep a few days worth of food and water on hand in case of a situation like this, but nobody expects it to last for a week or more. Leaving people without power for this long, particularly when they are in the middle of a scorching heat wave, puts people's lives at risk.

Abbott has already listed some of the improvements that CenterPoint needs to make immediately. They need to publish improved plans for the staging of linemen, vehicles, and equipment in advance of approaching storms. They need to hire additional manpower so they can quickly get into the field and begin restoring power. And they need a comprehensive program to trim or cut down trees and limbs that could come down during a storm and knock out power lines. 

All of that just sounds like common sense and similar programs are already in place all across the country. Every fifty-mile stretch of the coast of Texas is hit by a hurricane on average every six years. The Lone Star State is hammered by a major hurricane (Category 3 or above) every fifteen years. This wasn't some freak act of nature. CenterPoint should have had plenty of practice and been ready for this, but they clearly were not. 

What's unclear is what sort of executive action the Governor can legally take. CenterPoint is a public utility holding company under the Texas Electric Choice Plan. As such, they do fall more under the thumb of the state government than strictly private corporations do. But they are still responsible for managing their own operations. It's not clear that the Governor could come storming in and specify certain operational policies of his own choosing. Such changes would be more solidly put through if the state enacted those operating requirements legislatively. One way or another, something needs to be done. This lengthy blackout is both unacceptable and dangerous.