CenterPoint: Power restored for 98% of customers impacted by Beryl; won't charge for outage period

HOUSTON (KIAH/KXAN) — Wednesday afternoon, more than 10 days since Hurricane Beryl roared ashore in Texas, some 40,000 CenterPoint Energy customers still didn't have power. But what happens to their power bills?

It's a question many residents and businesses want answered. As they dish out more money to repair their homes and get their lives back together after Hurricane Beryl, will they have to pay for service they could not receive due to the storm?

On Wednesday, CenterPoint Energy said customers will not be charged for power that was not working during Beryl.

KXAN's Houston sister station CW39 spoke with Brad Tutunjian, CenterPoint Energy's vice president of regulatory policy, about the billing change and how much longer some people will get their power back.

"We're looking at 98% of our customers to have power restored by the end of the day (Wednesday)," Tutunjian said. "We're still on track to do that. We do know that with the nested outages and the things that we have been describing before, there's going to be customers that have damaged weather heads."

He said the power company is working with the "pockets of customers" who are still out to get their power restored, "hopefully as soon as Friday."

Tutunjian did not respond to a question about a class-action lawsuit filed by Houston attorney Tony Buzbee on behalf of some Houston restaurants that lost power and business due to the extended power outage.

"To be honest, our focus right now is on the restoration effort," he said. "We're concerned about our citizens that are out there in the heat. That's our primary focus right now. We have a lot of things that we need to make sure that we are able to get that power back on, and that's where we continue to maintain our focus."

According to a post by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on X, CenterPoint said it will also "focus on prevention efforts, including vegetation management."

Patrick's post also said the power company's server for the outage map will be up by Aug. 1 after crashing during the derecho in May.

Patrick earlier in the day announced the creation of the Senate Special Committee on Hurricane and Tropical Storm Preparedness, Recovery, and Electricity. The group comprises 13 lawmakers, including eight Republicans and five Democrats.

"As power returns, there is less demand for city, county and state resources," Patrick's post continued. "However, Texas will continue to address areas of need and respond to requests from local officials."