Power to the people: The people are still waiting

CenterPoint is feeling the heat from the 449,000 customers who are still without power, nearly two weeks after Ike.

Tom Standish, CenterPoint Energy's group president of regional operations, said in a conference call with Chronicle reporters that crews will be concentrated more tightly as the utility works to meet its goal of completing major repairs by the end of Sunday.

Even that will leave plenty of transformers and lines to individual customers for crews to fix next week.

Thursday evening, almost two weeks after Hurricane Ike knocked out power to millions of electric customers, 449,000 still were in the dark -- 20 percent of CenterPoint's customers.

Standish said that in recent days, workers have been dispersed from 200 neighborhood substations to sortie out for repairs. That system is being collapsed to 70 substations in the hardest-hit areas.

Most neighborhoods with persisting electric outages can expect a tripling of personnel in the coming days, Standish said.

Does that mean the areas in the worst shape were put at the back of the line? Not exactly.

Areas with huge problems also require more lengthy assessments, Standish said. Crews that could make repairs were deployed to fix easy problems that restore large groups of customers, while other personnel assessed damage in harder-hit areas.

"That's the trade-off you make," he said.

I don't really know how to judge CenterPoint's performance. I'm sure they'll do an after-action review to see how they could have done better. And they won't be the only ones.

Houston state Sen. John Whitmire said he has asked state leaders to let him lead a special legislative review of the recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ike.

Whitmire said he has talked to Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst about looking at how the state and private industry handled the restoration of Houston and surrounding areas when it came to electricity, food, water and fuel.

Whitmire, whose daughter Whitney, 26, works as a City Hall lobbyist for CenterPoint Energy, said he believes the discussion should include questions of whether to require CenterPoint to harden its electrical system against future storms.

Areas of the city with underground electrical lines weathered the storm the best, Whitmire said. But he said any such requirements would be at a cost to electrical customers.

"It's about money. We do anything we want if we're willing to pay for it. We can require it of CenterPoint if we as consumers are willing to pay for it," Whitmire said.

And so far, a lot of people have expressed an opinion as to whether or not customers would be willing to pay for such measures, but as far as I can tell no one has really asked the customers for their opinion. Maybe some public hearings are in order. Let's have the conversation and find out once and for all what people would prefer.

And finally, speaking of paying for things:

Hurricane Ike's punishing winds and driving rains damaged numerous Houston and Harris County buildings, officials said Thursday, estimating it will cost $21 million just to repair facilities at Reliant Park.

Reliant Stadium and its five damaged roof panels account for a little more than half of that $21 million estimate, said Willie Loston, director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation.

Roof damage allowed rain to soak carpets and walls at Reliant Center and Reliant Arena, he added, causing an estimated $6.2 million and $3.8 million in damage respectively.

The figures are preliminary and the actual cost could be significantly higher or lower, Loston said.

But since the county is eligible for a 70 percent reimbursement from FEMA for its $10.3 million deductible, the county likely only will be responsible for $3 million in repairs, he said.

It's not clear to me who's paying for that. The Texans? The Sports and Convention Corporation? Harris County general revenues? Some of each? Help me out here.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 26, 2008 to Hurricane Katrina