CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS | Gary Borders
More than two million Texans lost power when Hurricane Beryl hit the Texas coast, and Gov. Greg Abbott wants to know why. The Austin American-Statesman reported Abbott has ordered the Public Utility Commission to conduct an immediate study into why the Houston area has again been hit by widespread power outages.
“I want to find out, was there a structural flaw with regard to the electrical delivery system?” Abbott said. “Was that the cause of it? If so, what needs to be done to shore up, or was this a personnel issue of not having enough power personnel in all the right locations to get power back up?”
CenterPoint Energy is the primary electricity transmission company serving the Houston area. Its CEO, Jason Ryan, appeared before the PUC last week and was questioned about the outages.
“To our customers that not only have power out but have significant property damage from the trees we talked about coming up from the roots, our hearts go out to you and our hearts go out to our community,” Ryan said.
As of Sunday morning, CenterPoint’s website indicated 461,247 customers were still without power, nearly a week after Beryl made landfall.
To date, 67 counties have been approved for federal disaster assistance, while other counties may be included as damage assessments are concluded. Those counties in the initial list are: Anderson, Angelina, Aransas, Austin, Bowie, Brazoria, Brazos, Burleson, Calhoun, Cameron, Camp, Cass, Chambers, Cherokee, Colorado, Dewitt, Fayette, Fort Bend, Freestone, Galveston, Goliad, Gregg, Grimes, Hardin, Harris, Harrison, Hidalgo, Houston, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Lavaca, Lee, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Marion, Matagorda, Milam, Montgomery, Morris, Nacogdoches, Newton, Nueces, Orange, Panola, Polk, Refugio, Robertson, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, San Jacinto, San Patricio, Shelby, Trinity, Tyler, Upshur, Victoria, Walker, Waller, Washington, Webb, Wharton and Willacy.
Forest service assesses tree damage after Beryl More than 400,000 acres of rural forestland was potentially affected by Hurricane Beryl, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service, which has closed W.G. Jones State Forest in Conroe until a damage assessment can be undertaken. In addition, hurricane force winds potentially affected as much as half of Houston’s urbanized area tree coverage, the service reported.
“We used a combination of on-the-ground observation, remote sensing and Forest Inventory and Analysis data to conduct a tree damage assessment for rural forests in East Texas and the Houston metro area,” said Aaron Stottlemyer, Texas A&M Forest Service Forest Analytics Department Head.
Workers and others are urged to use extreme caution when clearing tree debris.
Old pipes lead to billions in lost gallons of water The state’s most populous cities lost approximately 88 billion gallons of water last year because of aging pipes and extreme heat, The Texas Tribune reported. Unsurprisingly, the city that lost the most water, according to self-reported audits, was Houston, the state’s largest, at 31.8 billion gallons.
Coming in second was San Antonio, which reported losing 19.5 billion gallons.
The main factors for the losses are leaks and water main breaks, problems more often associated with smaller towns with fewer resources to maintain infrastructure, The Tribune reported.
“What we have right now is not sustainable [or] tenable,” said Jennifer Walker, National Wildlife Federation’s Texas Coast and Water Program director.
An Austin-based think tank, Texas 2036, predicts the state will need to spend more than $150 billion over the next half-century on water infrastructure.
‘Real ID’ will be required by next May
Is your state-issued identification card, such as a driver’s license, a Real ID? Texans have until May 2025 to find out and comply with a federal law passed in 2005 in response to 9/11, the Statesman reported. The state in response began issuing Real ID compliant cards in 2016. These cards have a gold circle with an inset star located in the upper right-hand corner.
Right now, a Real ID card is not required to fly domestically, but that will change on May 7, 2025. After that, a Real ID or a passport will be required to board domestic flights. Anyone renewing their driver’s
