Some KHOU 11 viewers have driven by CenterPoint’s staging sites for out-of-town crews wanting to know why so many trucks were parked and not out in the field.
Fine. How about the rest of us get paid to be idle instead of doing our work. Let doctors just sit in their office instead of performing surgery or tending to their patients.
Oh no, no ,no ,no.........are you freaking kidding me???? Those bills and auto pay are FIRST priority. Forget it if no one has electricity........."who cares about them" Money is first......as usual.
They sit in the parking lot while my company makes me sweat in a shop with no electricity waiting for it to get turned on. Working 16 hours? But the first 6 is sitting idle? Poor management.
Texas Public Utility Commission: (search for the number) call PUC won't be much help with this outage, except that it puts your complaint into the public record. Be sure to state that your complaint is not that you don't have power, but rather Centerpoint continuously fails to provide the infrastructure and resources needed to communicate with the public. They refuse to build a basic website that can communicate with their customers in the middle of an outage. They don't provide enough call center people to take phone calls, they don't disseminate basic information to employees to pass on to customers. (Not to mention they can't provide reliable service). Your call to PUC won't fix your problem today, but by getting your complaint into the public record, it makes it harder for the politicians to claim "there is no problem, the grid is working great". It's not working great. It's terrible. It's fragile, unreliable, and more expensive to the consumer than it has to be.
@@Tbrew-zd6xb im not blaming Texas labor ... although if the are sitting at work in the dark they should be utilizing the time to organize a Labor Union for themselves
It’s still not enough. 12k workers for a city alone that is over 600 square miles!? Someone up top needs to be fired, major incompetence. CENTERPOINTLESS
@@Kevin-438 Profit margins first ... THEY CANNOT DO THEIR JOB. IT'S TOO BIG FOR THEM. BUT THEY'LL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL ALL THR RB'S GET THEIR MONEY B4 ANY CHANGES ARE MADE.
I understand why people are upset, it sucks to not have power. But thats 20 line workers per sqaure mile. Thats a substantial amount of workers. I would like to see everybody in the comments complaining run an operation to restore power to 2 million people. Everybody thinks they are an expert at everything now because of these stupid phones. I would say it's pretty impressive that we got hit with a hurricane we didn't know we were going to get hit with until like 6 hours before it made shore and did not anticipate it being more than a tropical storm. Yet we'll all have power most likely by the end of sunday. We were without power for 2 and some people 4 weeks during hurricane Ike, no one was upset with centerpoint. But that was also before the internet allowed the group think that fosters this mentality and before all the outsiders whove never experience a hurricane overcrowded this place.
I get that everyone is hot and frustrated with a lack of power. We were so fortunate to be without power for 36 hours. With Ike we were without for 11 days. Please don’t forget all the workers out in the 105 index working to get you back powered up. Direct those frustrations toward the CenterPoint leaders and Houston’s elected officials. And most importantly - don’t forget about this the moment your power is back and the AC hits your face.
@@colfchan It’s unacceptable. Not a single person is blaming the hardworking linemen. If you want to bootlick the ceo and management than go ahead. It’s 1000 square miles for Houston and the surrounding areas. And that’s not even including Galveston area. The infrastructure needs a serious revamp. I hope the state runs CenterPoint down with fines and regulations for there mismanagement of men and time. Along with disregard and neglect of their own lines. God help us if anything stronger comes through here. This storm was weak compared to Ike. We lost power for 4 days and that was 4 times the damages to everything. Centepointless has been sitting around for years and done nothing as the system decayed and now it’s come to light how bad it was. When little 67knt winds knocked out power worse than a cat 3 hurricane, there’s serious corruption and neglect.
Well a lot of jobs are like this. Sometimes it’s justified but you’d have to be on the inside to know that. Definitely seems like chaos and they do not have good leadership.
They got paid to be on standby, in work gear, ready to work, away from their families and lives. These guys are people too. They have lives like you do too. If this seems strange look into how the trades work. Stay blessed 🤙
@@andrewsnyder9262shit rolls downhill. The trades are frequently hurry up and wait. Upper management is frequently out of touch w the field work and employees. No perfect solution unfortunately.
To everyone complaining about the workers sitting in the trucks...As a retired lineman, it is not by their choice. It is frustrating to sit there doing nothing while daylight burns. Twice as much work can be accomplished during daylight as can be done at night. Many times I've sat in the truck waiting for a work order to only be given one shortly before it gets dark. Its not fun nor safe working in the dark.
@@jackieoesterman6688 Usually the normal employees of the utility are used as 'bird dogs'. They can be anything from a meter reader to engineers to other linemen or apprentices. People familiar with the area to guide out of area crews around and find trouble spots on the line. Who actually issues the work orders, I couldn't tell you. I was always the worker bee...by my choice. A massive outage such as a storm covering hundreds of square miles takes a lot of coordination. Lines have to be patrolled to find damage. Transmission is usually patrolled by helicopter. Distribution has to be patrolled by truck and in places where it is in inaccessible areas, by foot. First the transmission lines need to be restored before ANY power is restored. Usually done by crews who pretty much specialize in it. Meanwhile crews can be working on the feeders after isolating them so when power does come back to substations, the workers are safe. Next comes the 3 phase feeders. They are usually tied together by disconnect switches used to isolate sections fed by different substations. Substations usually don't get much damage unless there is massive flooding, damaging the controll wiring. The main objective is to get as many people (accounts) on with as little work as possible. That is why the main roads have power and the off streets may not. Then comes the most labor intensive work. Patrolling the taps. These are the lines feeding the majority of residential areas. Again, what can be brought back on line with the least amount of work. If you live on a line with hundreds of accounts you get priority than a tap with less accounts.Take into mind that lines which are accessible by trucks are a lot easier to fix than inaccessible locations which require the lineman to climb the pole.
People continue to wait at home in 90-degree heat while they're sitting in the parking lot doing nothing!! There needs to be accountability at Center Point bc this is awful. It's not the first time this has happened!! Do your job!!
The corrupt republican leaders take care of corrupt companies like center point. Yet so many Texans keep voting republicans in to rig the system even more.
I drove around for 4 hours today hunting ice and gas. Didn't see not 1 Centerpoint employee, truck on the road or working on anything. This is absolutely ridiculous
Maybe because they are fixing circuits , gathering equipment that needs replacing, waiting for trees to be cut, areas marked safe to work on . People don't understand what goes on the background.
Sitting in trucks till noon but the construction workers in my new build neighborhood start work at 7am after a hurricane. Seems like they've been directed properly. Tired of Centerpoint and tired of sweating.
Should go quicker from here on out... Says by Sunday.... How the hell is that quicker? My cousin says there isn't enough damage out there to explain the outage. What's Ercot really up to? Finally getting that black out they wanted huh? Time for the FTC to get involved.
Exactly. I have lights but I just know my bill will be 1k and over just like during the freeze. I will not be paying it this time and they’ll be able to collect when I’m dead
yup...they should've had the line trucks prepped just outside of the storm path with safety briefings done. The "restoration map" they gave us is a joke too...
They know what they’re doing, get ready because y’all haven’t seen nothing yet!!! Find Jesus while he can still be found!!! This world is fixing to end.
There are people who got power back in a day or a day and a half and they saw Centerpoint Energy people working really hard to restore power. What are you talking about man?
I rolled around the area (sw Houston) four times yesterday looking for fuel, and I saw ONE truck with ONE worker trying to knock something off a line with a pole. We are still without power well over a day later. When are these lying criminals going to be held accountable? GET RID OF CENTERPOINT ENERGY RIGHT NOW.
@@methe7738 I am not his biggest fan either. He’s on a junket with his big donors. As Michael Berry said, if you were on vacation and something happened to your son, what would the first thing be that you’d do? Come home. Abbott’s still in Asia.
I get that it’s not the workers fault, but centerpoint really has to be held accountable for the lack of preparation. We shouldn’t have to deal with power outages that last this long. Especially in summer. Stay safe everyone. Please make sure everyone around you is ok including yourself.
Prepare how? They knew it would be a week at least. That's how long it takes in Florida too. The first help to arrive were truckloads of generators, to run gas stations and traffic signals.
Those workers should know where they are going the day before. As soon as daylight hits they should be at their assignment no later than 8:00 am and working until 8:00 pm with rest breaks and lunch because it is hot outside.
You’re telling me 2 RU-vid commenters can organize better and run operations more efficiently than whatever the hell they’re calling management and officers and executives over there???
They can't do anything until trees are cleared. And maybe they're waiting on replacement parts. Maybe these crews have been up all night aand need a few hours of sleep. Dallas had a severe windstorm last month and people were without power for weeks for various reasons. And now people are complaining about where the tree trash is being placed. You'll never make everyone happy.
Talked to a line worker yesterday in my neighborhood in spring. He said he opened the box and it’s a simple fuse replacement, should only take about 5 minutes. But ordering the part at 9pm and having it approved for pickup at the warehouse is the time consuming part. Power finally came back on at 6am.
Gps trackers should be used to reduce costs and make these companies accountable for price gouging plus they alrady have recovered costs from transmission fees for decade's
We’ve been cooking in our home for days, people have died, and we are getting heatsick. They need to be held accountable for this major mishandling, especially when they’ve got crews merely sitting on their asses. Disgraceful.
It is never correct to use "I seen". "I saw" is the simple past tense of "I see": I saw an elephant yesterday. "Seen" is the past participle. If you are using the present perfect tense, you would say "I have seen": I have seen several elephants this week.
Remember a couple of months ago, the mayor of Houston said that city is broke. So maybe they are trying to figure out how they are going to pay these people
Centerpointless made over 6 billion profit last year... They can afford to pay... At least all their execs got big fat bonus checks as well as that useless CEO!
CenterPoint is garbage, I’m sick of seeing CenterPoint making excuses and lying these people are heartless shaming on the job for this long. To let people watch them shaming CenterPoint has failed horribly, and they do it every time something happens. This kind of responsibility in CenterPoint lazy hands is a major leadership failure
I'm betting Centrepoint Power will close and go into administration. That CEO is dodgy AF, it doesn't take 4 hours to prep for a job, that comment regarding safety is just a "cover answer."
They're all incompetent. I have been in a court case with them for over 7 months now and they can't even lie on the stand well and need their attorneys to gesture to keep them from screwing up testimony. Baker botts represent them in their filthy dealings.
If only y’all knew how dangerous that line of work is. Electricity is nothing to play with. Safety is there number one priority. If you gonna be mad at anyone, be mad at the executives and CEO’s of Center Point that weren’t prepared even with prior notice about the storm.
WOW 😮 really 😮we need our lights on please 🥺 haven't been able to use my breathing machine since Sunday 😮😢... This is UNEXCEPTABLE 😢 GET OUR ELECTRICITY 🔌 ON PLEASE 😢
@@JarrettBarker you first bucko. Just because you’re in a rough spot doesn’t mean you should start making grammatical mistakes. It’s the only thing that separates us from the animals.
Yada Yada Yada excuses. Centerpoint said soon after storm, they were not prepared for this type of storm. We knew for a week in advance it was coming. Today Centerpoint spokesman said Centerpoint was prepared well in advance of the storm. They are skewing numbers to cover up true outages but getting half of a block up to put area in green but not restoring power to the other half still out of power. Happening me and several I know in various in and out of Houston. Today the spokesman said even those some outages are in green, Centerpoint know of those outages. Clearly the public looks at green on map and are mislead, the green map reflects a success rate for restoring power which is inaccurate. Let's be honest Centerpoint, if all service is not restored in specific area, don't show it in green.
There is a tree literally sitting on top of a power line in my neighborhood in New Caney. The line and pole are just down on the ground. Nobody has come for 4 days so far and it's exactly how it looked the morning of the storm. The roads haven't been cleared of debris either. This isn't just a power company issue. The state government is who holds the power company accountable. They won't do anythiny unless government holds their feet to the fire. Stop complaining about Centerpoint and contact your state and local government. They are the ones who are not forcing these companies to do more. Texas is about to have another PG&E on their hands and if you don't know what that means it's a big gas company in California who blew up hundreds of citizens in their homes from gas explosions and the state government let's them get away with it because they finance campaigns for Gavin Newsom. Get ready for California 2.0 here in Texas if government continues to let these power companies run amok.
Center point crews are only to drive around sleeping in their trucks, chilling, acting kaki. If someone is working 20 standing around watching doing nothing but overtime. They don’t care about customers being in heat, kids or elderly people with health conditions. Center Point workers care about their paychecks. they simply don’t give a crap about customer service. They can easily find 1000s of excuses not to work. That’s Center Point . The Houston mayor needs to step up and consider local companies to restore all power lines
CP spokesperson, words are said that mean nothing. The media needs to either ask them tougher questions or not have them on tv. Saw 2 line trucks at the grocery store, looked like out-of-state and they had plenty of time midday to check every aisle and trucks were in the parking lot before & after my shopping...not a good look for CP.
The news has not completely informed people of what actually happens in these situations. Centerpoint called in line crews from all over the country. When thousands of linemen show up to work, they can't say, go find a broke line and fix it. You have to follow the way the lines work. That's why some people don't have trucks in their neighborhood. Once these guys get their briefing, they then have to wait on what they call tickets. They send them out to start working, repairing, and restoring power in a specific order. There is more that happens beyond the visual. I absolutely hate the fact that your news has portrayed these linemen as sitting and just hanging out in a parking. These guys will also have to sit in line waiting for material. They will have to stand down when the power is being switched back on. These linemen are husbands, fathers, sons, and even grandfathers who have left their families to go restore power for those of you in need. They take this job seriously. They work 16 hour days, with only 8 hours rest. If you see then "sitting" how can you know what is going on? I can say from my experience that other states that have had multiple hurricanes, people would see the guys sitting and ask if they need anything, if they are thirsty, if they can grab them something to eat, etc. This has been grossly different. To the point of one station having a bomb threat, a gun being pulled on a lineman, and even a lineman in the hospital for accepting a bottle of water from someone and it was laced with fentnyl. Is that seriously how you thank the people that are there to turn your power on? I'm sure you've noticed before that the media is not 100% informed or even honest with their "news". Don't jump on the first bandwagon of hate that you can. Try to see the bigger picture. These guys are highly trained in what they're doing. This job is extremely dangerous without the added concerns of what the citizens are going to pull. Next time you see a lineman, you might thank them for being there. You might ask if they need anything. Or, you might be left wondering why nobody shows up the next time a hurricane takes out 2.5 million peoples power.
You can bet that Centerpoint’s upper level management is a pool of blame being shifted and absorbed while the real issue at hand, to organize and fix this, is being set aside.
What most people are not aware of is that 10, 000 people were sent to Houston and surrounding areas to assist with restoration of electrical problems. However these people are from other States to from other countries and have to be trained and it takes time. Please be patient. Governor Abbott has said since Houston Texas seems to keep having these electrical problems, they must find the answer WHY to make sure that this problem is solved.
I can tell him why lol CenterPoint is more worried about making land grabs from homeowners for their disgusting transmission lines and substations. Meanwhile, they own enough property in the area, and it's a perfect spot to tie into, so no new lines are needed. Yet they paid Baker Botts law firm ungodly amounts of money to try and steamroll a whole community. They're more worried about that and their court cases where they want to raise rates again. All of that is more important than maintaining or repairing what they already have.
Same in Dallas when the wind storm came through, loads of out of state trucks parked like that. I've been a hard labor worker for over 40 years, I figured they have to rest and that's dangerous work, cutting trees and high voltage power lines. I bet most complaints are those who sit inside all day and rarely sweat.
I don't see Why someone sitting at home all day matters regarding them not having their needs (that they pay for)met. We are all customers who pay for services and the expertise of these services moreover transparency and truth. I cannot communicate with My patients as a result of this storm and vice versa. This is not the first storm here and furthermore it was ONLY a cat 1. They knew it was possible for this to happen so WHY not PREpare instead of making up stories as they go along. WE all understand process however when One continues to lie about the process over and over it's unsettling. People are not okay when they are not communicated to and provided honesty. We are talking about human life at this point. BTW this could have/should have been prevented.
@dashingnurse5098 They did prepare, but the storm turned north. It was uncertain where it would hit. They had to cover the entire Texas coastline. The storm was Cat 1 based on sustained winds, but there were gusts up to 120mph. This is nothing new to Houston. This is what happens.
They are just making excuses, and this never happens in Florida as we have power restored within 24 hours. Now we are going to be dealing with loss of life and injury due to CenterPoint...
You want to know why this was worse than it should have been? They SEVERELY FAILED in their job of maintaining the lines year after year. You can drive all over the Houston Metro area before the storm and you'd see power lines overgrown with tree branches and other foliage. In some cases, vines have grown the entire length of the pole. Neglect is what made this worse than it could I d have been.
I understand that people are frustrated with the situation. However, there is a process to how they have to troubleshoot and repair efficiently. They can't just dispatch them blindly throughout the city. It doesn't work that way.
People are frustrated because there’s been many accounts of them not doing anything efficiently. Is easy for some that have had light, but those that don’t have light are dealing with it. I don’t have light and now Centerpoint is stating we might either Friday night or Sunday night. I have yet to see any truck near my neighborhood, even though this past Tuesday my area was labeled to be next in line.
This is nothing new. I worked for an electric utility for 40 years and this happened every time we went to help others or if other companies came in to help us.
Thos is what happens when your government allows private companies to own and administer utilities..despite citizens paying ever higher taxes for services and infratructure with no guarantees of anything..this was allowed to happen by elected officials a LONG TIME AGO. So don't blame Centerpoint; they are delivering EXACTLY WHAT YOU ASKED FOR. Incompetence and 100% profit driven actions in which YOU THE CUSTOMER ARE NOT A FACTOR, JUST AN EXPENSE ON A P&L STATEMENT.
Oh yes there is. You have no idea how crooked they are until you are in court against them. Their attorneys at Baker Botts encourage and enable them to lie. And they can't even get that right!
Rest assured Houstonians , if another hurricane whichever category comes this way again you won’t see more electricity till next year Centerpointless have our backs .
I just want to point out the same news channels that are so quick to "investigate" Centerpoint. Where the same people telling you Sunday night that everything would be good and we would be back at work Monday afternoon. More than half of our power is restored in less than 72 hours. We were without power for weeks during Ike. But that's fine let them manipulate you and deflect your frustration. But I think any news station bashing CenterPoint for not preparing are standing on a very miniature pedastool.
Omg.... it's like the military. You get to a staging area and receive tons of briefs, then get your orders. They also probably waited for their "scouts" to come back with areas that need service, then prioritize them. It's not as easy as "you go there, and you go there."
This wasn't just centerpoint, but entergy too! I spoke with numerous drivers sitting in parking lots waiting to be told the next job. One truck said they were almost at the end of their shift and hadn't done anything that day. These companies need to be investigated for negligence. Safety briefing should have been given the first day for the whole week, and only repeated for new trucks that came from out of town subsequent days.
They have a lack of workers need to bring in crews from out of their service area but that costs money. Can you imagine if that storm had been a cat 3 or stonger, wouldn't have power until XMAS SMH.
God bless them all for thier time and hard non stop work ! People need to realize just how hard - hot - what they are all going through to help so many people everywhere. They also have families & come from not just local areas but also from out of town fo all of us !
First of all, it is NOT the employees fault for the incompetence of the superiors BUT don't talk about the employees having families and coming from saturn etc because THEY ARE GETTING PAID, NOT WORKING FOR FREE, MEANWHILE WE GET CHARGED RIDICULOUS ABSURD AMOUNTS OF DELIVERY CHARGES AND THE HIGH PRICE OF KILOWATTS FOR THE EMBARRASSING SERVICE CENTER POINT SUPERIORS ARE DOING!!
Theyre not hot! They're sitting in trucks not doing anything for hours! Also you must have missed the point where it's not their fault. They're not even from here and waiting on orders.
They need to follow them day after day to see how late they start and find out why orders are not being sent promptly to workers forcing them to sit in their trucks this is wild 😂
It takes these clowns 4 hours to hold a safety meeting for the same thing they talked about fall weeks for 4 hours each day. Its how the union operates and wastes as much time and money as the Democrat's
Anyone ever think they might have more trucks than people to operate them? You act like the utilities plan these outages and they work in some alternative environment.. They have to drive on the same roads and deal with the areas that are blocked with debris.. They also have lines in the middle of nowhere that are not accessible when it's raining and real muddy.. They are also human beings and are in the same heat as you, they need to eat, sleep, drink liquids, and all that stuff to avoid accidents and injuries.. You take your electricity for granted and go crazy when it's out for a couple of days following a major weather event.. Next time they ask for a rate increase, go and tell the authorities to approve it.. I bet that won't happen
People over here shitting on CP. I would like to hear the other side of the story. I've worked in logistics with a mass of 300 people on one place and that alone was a nightmare. Now you have power grids that youve got to test to see where the problem is to be able to go check to see what exactly the problem is then report the problem to get an ok for a fix. Just be glad there's something happening rather than nothing. You may not have power right now but it's been turned on for many many people.
Yep. I did on-site and site prep work for 32 years. Had 100 laborers, 30 machines, and 10 trucks. Did about 3-5 jobs at once. We had safety meetings every Monday morning, and job site meetings every morning. It was alot to coordinate, and the most I did was 5 sites at a time.
You don't just go around reconnecting power lines. *It takes planning, coordination, and includes tons of safety checks.* Maybe these reporters should ask about that instead of stalking trucks and their crews.
