# @houstonpubmedia on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/C9SaifWNR7N
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/66404060-houstonpubmedia-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/a9c26f2809.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-07-11T15:38:45.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Jayla Rhodes (@jayrhomedia) — https://gondola.cc/jayrhomedia

## Caption

A CenterPoint representative sat in the hot seat on Wednesday, addressing the concerns of Houston City Council on how Beryl, a Category 1 hurricane, caused the widest power outage in the energy company's history.

Brad Tutunjiun, CenterPoint's vice president of regulatory policy, repeatedly told council members that the company was prepared for Hurricane Beryl. He said they began field exercises last month, that emergency operations began 72 hours before the hurricane made landfall, and 24 hours before, they ensured that "all of our resources are available."

Council members asked Tutunjiun to then explain how more than 2.2 million people in and around Houston lost power. Fewer outages happened during Hurricane Ike, a category 2 storm in 2008.

He pointed to Houston's trees and broken branches that had fallen on power lines.

Molly McPherson is a Massachusetts-based crisis communications strategist. McPherson was deployed to Houston during Hurricane Ike in 2008, when she worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), so she knows what it's like to lose electricity during the summer in southeast Texas.

McPherson said CenterPoint is "rapidly losing faith and trust" from its customers while adding that the new outage map rolled out late Tuesday by the company is "working against the utility by letting people know how poor the service is."

Read the latest CenterPoint Energy updates online, at houstonpublicmedia.org
#Beryl #CenterPointEnergy

📷: Lucio Vasquez; Celeste Schurman / Houston Public Media

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## Tags

beryl, centerpointenergy

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