Energy company

good morning chairman gleon and Commissioners and the newest commissioner congratulations uh my name is Jason Ryan Executive Vice President with Center Point Energy uh we are still in Emergency Operations uh but I think it's important that we appear today and appreciate the time to update you and the public on uh the status of restoration uh at certain point energy we have the privilege to serve almost 3 million homes and businesses in the Houston area and I mean uh the privileged word intentionally uh so let me start off by talking to our customers that are still out uh we know that we still have a lot of work to do uh and we will not stop the work until it is done uh to our customers that not only have power out but have significant property damage uh damage from the trees that we've talked about coming up from the roots uh our hearts go out to you our HS go out to our community uh and we know that after restoration is done we have a lot of work to do uh to support the community to get back on their feet uh I also want to say that since yesterday was National line workers appreciation day uh call out the line workers that have done a tremendous job uh with the restoration efforts so far and I'll detail that work um you know there so far no serious uh incidents uh or fatalities and with the number of mutual assistance Crews uh and the dangerous conditions that we've got I think that's a feat worth mentioning at the beginning uh also I mentioned at the beginning as it relates to to customers so that they're aware uh we did early on uh stop processing disconnection requests from the retail electric providers and we'll continue to assess uh when that should begin under the terms of our tariff going forward U so let me uh detail a little bit uh of the uh the event and then I'll go into our preparation and restoration work you do have a slide deck uh that I prepared uh to give you some hopefully helpful visuals as we uh have the discussion um first I I guess you we've heard a little bit about the storm uh but it was unique in a couple of different ways and uh the visual on page two uh helps to provide that you know it was a storm that uh formed very East in the Atlantic it Formed early it strengthened quickly uh was one of the stronger hurricanes ever to form this early uh in the hurricane season and was uh clearly unpredictable um we'll talk to meteorological experts at the after uh this event and get their take on it to you but I think one of the things to point out that the map shows uh is the significant hurricane force winds that were felt uh throughout the entirety of our service territory as commissioner glotel has already referenced you know we were uh on the uh uh the path that is probably one of the worst paths a hurricane could take which is uh uh coming on Shore in the madora area very close to our service territory our service territory is outlined in the black there which means that the entirety of the Greater Houston area was in on the dirty side of the storm and that what that means is as uh the storm swirls from right to left you've got the strongest winds the the most of the tornadic activity uh and the most severe weather coming up in on the right side of the eyewall uh so that was happening throughout the entirety of our service territory what the MTH shows is that the entire 5,000 square mile uh service territory of Houston was in that uh dirty side of the storm and the one thing I'll point out I know it's a little hard to see um but there are wind speeds that are uh there on the various dots uh the wind speed at Intercontinental Airport was 83 mph uh that is higher uh than Hurricane Ike wisby that intercontinental airport right uh so hurricane ik being a major Category 2 uh storm versus this being category one uh the wind speeds were higher further Inland um as the hurricane continued to go through ing's area into East Texas uh there was more cyclonic activity with the storm uh than uh the entirety of some storm Seasons uh hurricanes there were 67 uh tornado watches issued by the National Weather Service as that storm continued to push Inland so uh again it was a hurricane I'll set aside whether it was a category one uh two three or four hurricane it was a a significant hurricane as it came ashore as it left our system midday on Monday uh we had 2.26 million customers out of our almost 3 million uh customers that we serve let me talk a little bit about the uh planning in advance of the storm so uh as the other utilities have described we also have a comprehensive planning process at centerp Point Energy it doesn't start uh only in the event uh of a storm we do comprehensive training every year uh your staff is involved uh many times in that uh training process as well we did that earlier this year um as the uh storm formed we started tracking it about 9 days out um knowing that there is great uncertainty in the path that it was something that we should uh keep our eyes on as the uh path started to shift especially uh after the 4th of July we started calling on Mutual assistance Crews we started with uh about 3,000 Mutual assistance Crews that we asked to come and preposition uh in the Greater Houston area and what I mean by that it's important um it we don't ask those Crews to come into uh the direct uh path of the storm so I'm not saying we ask them to preposition at different places in Houston that wouldn't be uh what we ever asked them to do uh they pre-positioned outside of our service territory so as soon as it was safe to do so they could come into our staging sites as uh the path looked like it was one of those worst case scenarios we U that Mutual assistance request uh to a little bit greater than 10,000 uh Crews to give you an order of magnitude that's about eight times uh the workforce of uh centerp Point Energy on uh any given day um that brought our total um Workforce up to about 12,000 uh men and women that could address this storm we also opened uh 18 staging sites um that were located strategically Ally throughout our service territory where uh they could be closest to the work uh when they end their work every day and they start their work every morning uh the I'll talk a little bit more about the staging sites in a little bit we also um immediately started to deploy our temporary emergency Generation Um I would have brought uh a list uh if I knew you were going to ask that question about where they were deployed I'll get you a list uh to your offices but they are in facilities like uh cooling C hospitals senior living facilities and uh and water facilities we continue to look for uh ways to deploy those assets and the uh the way they can best help our community going forward also on the slide uh I mentioned that we have very uh limited issues with materials availability uh I unfortunately was speaking to you a little bit uh less than two months ago about the May 16th dero that uh uh hit the Greater Houston area as well we are able to replenish supplies um from that storm to be prepared for this one so there are no material issues causing any delays with restoration uh the one thing that we have asked for help with are for uh braces for poles uh so not every pole that uh has some damage needs to be replaced in real time you can brace it uh and come back later and so we have asked for some assistance uh having more braces for poles uh during this event let me talk a little B about uh the damage that we saw um from the storm uh slides four uh and five show some of that we did not have material damage to our transmission system uh nor did we see material damage to substations uh we did not see uh flooding of substations like we've seen in some past storms uh this was a uh storm that was largely debris on the distribution system uh so you see some pictures uh that show that um on page five you see some of our uh work to date uh we have uh completed the vast majority of our damage assessment work and expect to uh finish that today let me pause a little bit about the importance of that damage assessment work that's done uh in the first couple of days post STM in order to effectively utilize not only Center points crew but the more than 10,000 uh Crews that we brought in from other places we need to know what kind of Crews to send where that's what our damage assessment workers do uh in the early days after a storm not every crew is the same if I have substantial damage to distribution poles if I've got poles on the ground I need to send a construction crew uh if I've got uh two 50 poles on the ground like we do in some places I need to send significant construction Crews if I have uh trees online I need to send vegetation management Crews to go in and clear those trees if I can uh quickly restore service um uh by doing minor work on facilities I can send much smaller crews out to do that we can't start sending crews out until we get that damage assessment done that damage assessment looks like people walking literally walking uh as of the end of yesterday 8,500 miles of distribution lines uh we have flown uh distribution lines with helicopters we have used drones to help us with that assessment as well so I know it's incredibly frustrating to see Mutual assistance crews in the early days waiting to do the work uh but we can't effectively rely on that Workforce if we don't know where to send them if we send a construction crew somewhere where a smaller crew could do the work we're ineffectively using that that Workforce so I'm happy to report that uh by the end of the day yesterday we're 85% complete with that damage assessment work we'll finish it today and we are uh restoring customers uh actively with our mutual assistance Crews you see on the next page uh some of the staging sites you see the the dots on the map exactly where those staging sites are uh Commission GL filty mentioned he came to a staging site on Tuesday the day after the storm uh that is where we do our initial intake of uh Crews that are coming on to our system it's where they get safety briefings it's where they learn about uh different design specifications for the work that they're going to be doing things like uh how uh how much clearance uh on a roadway Crossing do they need to do to comply with local or state regulations right they're coming in from out of state they're not used to working on our system so we brief them on all of that this is where they come uh every evening when they're done with work Park their trucks uh get their food get bused to a hotel uh the next day they're busted back to that staging site they get their food for the day they get their work plans and they exit so these staging sites are fairly significant logistical um hubs we had the initial staging site set up uh less than half a day or about half a day after the storm cleared our system so a lot of work goes into putting those together you can't put them together before the storm hits right so the big tents where Crews uh get briefings and get their food uh can't be put up before the hurricane so you see a lot of that activity uh right in those early hours after the storm leaves um on the next page you see just a list of our significant Mutual assistance uh Crews I wanted you to have the names of those companies we're very thankful that they send their men and women uh uh to to help the Greater Houston area finally let me get into to Restoration stats you see that on page eight uh so uh as of today uh we have restored more than 50% of the outages so we've restored about 1.2 million homes and businesses there's a little over 1 million homes and businesses uh left to be restored so uh I'll I like to rely on data uh as a good way to judge Readiness uh we have never restored uh more than a million customers uh a little over two days after a hurricane U before and you can only do that uh with significant Readiness uh we know we still have a lot of work to do we uh communicated to our customers last night we expect to have another 400,000 customers on by the end of the day tomorrow we expect to have another 350,000 customers on by the end of the day on Sunday that takes you to about 80% restoration by the end of the weekend we continue to assess uh our Workforce needs if we believe that we can effectively onboard additional crews in order to speed up the work we will uh that leaves about 5 00,000 customers that we currently expect uh to have outages that go into next week we issued a communication to customers today uh that said that by noon we will start providing estimated restoration times for those customers that are going to have outages that go into next week we will update those uh estimated restoration times as we get better information on what those customers should expect let me talk a little bit about Communications uh with our customers uh we did uh as of the end of the day yesterday 27 uh media interviews we had 72 social media posts uh keeping customers advised of the work that we were doing the process that we were going through where they were in the process in a outage map that we posted are you in the assessment phase are you in the phase where your outage is being assigned to a crew uh for that work uh we also encouraged customers to sign up for our power alert service so that they could personally get these estimated restoration times when we push them out by either uh phone call text or email so they're no longer relying on just press releases uh to understand when their uh estimated restoration times are U so again we know um that some of the hardest hit areas uh are along the coast uh and up the I45 Corridor up to the Woodlands uh so we will be communicating to customers so they have situational awareness as we go into next week where they are uh with that estimated restoration time uh uh in the spirit of continuous Improvement we always do after action uh reviews we have started uh to document our lessons learned uh and I'm happy to talk about that either today or uh as this process continues I know chairman gleon this is not the first time first and last time we'll have this discussion uh but know that we uh we are undertaking that process as we speak and we will do a full after action review um at the end let me go ahead and close uh Again by acknowledging to the customers that are out as we speak and especially to those customers uh that will have outages for an extended period of time past this weekend we know we have a lot of work to do our crews are working around the clock 16h hour workshifts uh we will continue to assess whether or not we have the right number of Crews and whether we should bring additional ones in and we will not stop our work until the work is done thanks Jason um just before questions just made one comment uh you know so at the outset you talked about rebuilding the infrastructure rebuilding the community I'd say a third um you know leg of that stool is rebuilding trust a little bit and I think that really starts with effective communication you know you touched a little on communication as I've thought about this I would strenuously urge you all to get out once once everything is restored get out into the community I don't know if that's town halls or or or what it looks like but go talk to your customers go talk to those residents um about what happened about you know ways that you feel you all can improve get feedback from them about uh their view on what can be improved and I think that'll make the next time that there's a storm uh make this go a lot better because as we learned at this commission you know after Yuri communication is is the key to everything I mean you know the infrastructure is going to break things are going to happen but if people feel they're being effectively communicated with um it makes it a lot easier to go through it and so I'd say get out in the community and go talk to your to your customers I appreciate that we're fully supportive of that and we'll make sure we coordinate with your office so you know what we're doing thank you Commissioners yeah um Jason so you laid out the statistics that I've been asking for for from the other companies and essentially what you're saying is that um you still have over 50% of the power outages out right now when you provideed a timeline through the end of the weekend about half a million extending into next week constant communication with them I think is important as you've laid out y'all are doing um so they can plan uh accordingly to get to a safe place um if they need to and so um what what are some of the reasons why uh that you're seeing based on your damage assessments that it's taking longer to get to these half a million customers so those are in areas where we are having to rebuild the infrastructure uh so so in areas where um it's removing uh debris on the distribution system what I mean by that largely uh vegetation um trees limbs some in the right of way some outside the right of way commissioner uh I will uh request that our folks keep Good Records on on what's what so that we can give order of magnitude where that was um that that is the kind of restoration that we will accomplish by the end of this weekend where we have to uh rebuild uh large spans of infrastructure um with poles that uh snapped in half laying on the ground you got a couple pictures of that uh kind of damage that is the kind of work uh that's going to lead to those extended power outages uh so as we uh again as we continue to um uh assess our Workforce needs uh and whether or not we need to bring bring more people in uh we will accelerate those estimated restoration times um and we're going to start communicating with customers today during those that are going to experience those extended outages based on your review of your pre hurricane inventory for materials and equipment do you think that you have enough equipment and materials to rebuild this infrastructure we do um you know the the one thing and I know we're working with TM on this as of this morning uh we want to make sure we have sufficient diesel fuel for our emergency Generation Um because we expect this extended outages in certain areas uh we I don't want to say that we have a concern about it right now because we are working through the appropriate channels there as we we don't have any material concerns there's that fuel concern that we're working through but certainly as we have any unmet needs we will work with our mutual assistant partners and through uh state and federal channels to make sure those un needs get met okay with respect to the fuel concerns is there anything that um can be done to like by the commission anybody anything that can help you um get those resources so we're working the right channels if we end up with some roadblocks we'll be back in touch with your office for sure fantastic and and back to the mobile DG discussion um so I understand you'll you'll how many mobile DG units do you all have so we have 17 large ones and what I mean by that is uh either 30 Mega uh or five uh megawatt uh units those are best used uh during load shed uh but we are looking for opportunities to use uh those units to pick up uh parts of circuits uh where there may still be damage going up to the substation but you can insert uh midc circuit and pick homes up so as we make progress on our restoration work we will continue to look for opportunity ities to use those uh mid circuit uh we then have more than a dozen uh smaller units 2 and a half megawatt uh units uh one megawatt units half megawatt units and we have a vendor that allows us to um to bulk up uh on that on a temporary basis when we need them for storms like this so that those smaller units aren't just sitting uh in a yard somewhere so we're working with that vendor as we uh identify uh uh homes or businesses or or critical facilities that can uh use those smaller units We Will We Will bulk up um as the need requires we have also uh requested uh through mutual assistance some additional um generation so we've got sufficient generation for the needs that have been identified so far we continue to work with critical facilities like uh water facilities to avoid boil water notices um you know a lot of uh facilities like that that are critical have their own backup generation but in extended outages we have to be concerned about whether that backup generation will be sufficient to power through the entire event uh so we're working very closely with those critical facilities working very closely with our uh government officials to make sure that we're aware of what the status is of any generation that they may have as backup for those facil facilities that they're concerned about uh I have members of my team embedded in the emergency operation centers of many cities and many counties right now uh so that the information flow in that regard uh is seamless we have a priority desk uh in our emergency Operation Center uh that exists solely to take um those kinds of requests and work them whether we can accelerate uh restoration of our facilities uh if there's a a concern about those backup generation facilities failing or whether or not we can use our own uh backup generation uh to go and augment what they have so Jason you you mentioned the large ones are can only be used when there's load shed per the commission's rules are are the 12 smaller ones subject to the same um so it's not really rule based uh commissioner it's really more just the a 30 megawatt uh unit is is more like to be useful at a substation uh to pick up entire circuits uh during load shed uh when there's damage on those circuits from a storm like this they are less useful in that scenario uh but again we look to make sure that we can utilize all of our assets uh so uh if this storm which didn't happen this time if this storm had caused significant uh transmission level damage and left substations without power uh but circuits that could take power that's when these 30 megawatt units could be used in a storm scenario uh that's not this storm okay yeah I just asked because you know there's a lot of frustration as you said and um there's a lot of discussion about out there about the mobile gen units that your company has you got have like 30 of them I think it's going to be really important to really explain you know when you know why you could you can't use some of them right now um when you deployed the mobile gen units it sounds like based on your damage assessments of where strategically you can actually use them but I think it's going to be really important to provide that information in the after Action Report um as to you know the the issues with not being able to use all of them um when they were deployed where they were deployed and I you know I all in your presentation that amongst the critical care customers there's Education Centers is did I read that correctly um that's correct so we have um you know even though school is out uh you have some facilities that might be serving as daycares in the community uh or providing other services in the community uh so we are uh looking at uh how to lessen the impact on the community of power outages and how to get the community back to normal quicker and so opening up facilities like that that provide um those kinds of services are critically important as well okay Jason just real quick on to follow up to the mobile gen comment so if some of your units aren't really made for for something like this can you through mutual assistance use other TDU mobile gen units yes sir did you do that in this case do you uh we did that in the May dero and we've uh done it here too uh I believe I don't know how the how many Encore has but we have asked for Mutual assistance from Encore in that I think it would be helpful as you're showing where you located these to differentiate between your assets and then encore's assets would be helpful would do you mentioned the water districts sorry Jimmy and um you as the length of time prolongs if they did have their own generation do they then contact you do you reach out because I think after drro it was some miscommunication has that Gap been filled from y side yeah so so uh some are reaching out to us we are also proactively reaching out uh so we have uh a way for um our local governments uh water districts included uh to submit to us proactively their critical facilities uh that that list is long uh and so in a storm like this we keep track of uh which of those critical facilities has power which one doesn't as you could imagine often times uh when they don't have power and uh they proactively call us uh we're also proactively reaching out to them and like I said we've got people embedded uh in all of the local emergency operation centers uh and that's where that information can bubble up as well uh I won't say that the Gap is perfectly closed uh but we're in active communication uh with that group of customers hi Jason uh good morning commissioner um a couple things first of all um again I I think a lot of this is after action like when we're looking back how do we make sure that this is better next time um I know the lieutenant governor the governor the mayor have all they're all going to be able to uh voice their views to you all uh there's a lot of displeasure in West Houston and in in East Houston and in North Houston um and uh I'm not you know I I think that comes with the territory so to speak um it's hard to plan for these when you don't know if they're coming and uh it's expensive if you plan for them and they don't come it's expensive for right payers um what I what I hope you all can do on a on a uh hurricane like this one is um I don't understand how you get how you sure ensure you have the right mix of vegetation management folks versus versus linemen uh it's great to say we have 10,000 linemen but if you need 10,000 vegetation management folks and $5,000 5,000 linemen um it'd be great to try to understand that in the context of a storm like this with all of this vegetation challenge um as we go forward to think about that um is that the Right Mix might be might not be but uh but I I'd like to explore that with you all yes sir fully support that so uh the other one is uh barkell and Connie as we go through this um the the one thing that we cannot lose sight of is the fact that these linemen are people uh and that at I I haven't heard of a single incident uh at least a death which um would tell me that um that's a good thing um if we get through this storm uh in the restoration with uh maybe 20,000 additional people touching system every single day for a week and a half or two weeks um we are actually very blessed that nobody has an incident and uh we we need to keep that in mind and I think as we write up our report and our story to the legislature the human life told that the storm took is important but also on the restoration because they're the ones who are uh who are climbing the poles every day so if you have incidents on that or you have ideas or thoughts on how to include that uh how you can do safety briefings better or how they've worked versus other utilities I think all of that is important in our after action of yes sir we'll work with uh your your office and staff on that as well you know again I know customers are frustrated uh at how long uh it may take especially in these prolonged outage areas safety is our top priority uh as you mentioned uh these men and women are working 16 hour shifts it's important that they take the the other eight uh to rest because these are dangerous conditions it's hot uh out there that's a safety issue as well a lot of these Crews don't come from places where it feels like0 de uh so if if our customers see Crews uh standing on the side of the road or in their trucks it may be uh to cool off take a break uh stay safe that's what we stress with these Crews that come in from uh not the Gul Coast Area uh to make sure that uh we can end this event with no uh serious injuries or fatalities well certainly want to make sure that people get their power on as quickly as possible and and you talked about uh about a half a million people would go into next week um any idea geographically where that is is it across the surface area or is it in specific areas so some of the harder hit um areas are uh the Mader County uh um Brazoria County parts of Galveston County uh where the storm uh originally came ashore um but with those uh High sustained winds that went uh across the I45 Corridor or up the I45 Corridor once you get kind of inside the loop I have a map that I'm happy to uh share with you that shows uh that and that is going to be uh how we communicate these estimated restoration times with customers they're in these particular harder hit areas they're going to be out the longest most likely uh there will be small Pockets throughout the 5,000 square miles of our service territory that have some prolonged outages um but the vast majority of them are going to be in those areas that I just described so in terms of um restoration and again going back a and doing the after Action Report um one of the things I'd be interested in you talked about how we have to get in and do the assessment first right but um obviously we're doing I would think many assessments and so you know what is that process in terms of you know how do we carve out the service area to determine you know how many assessments we should be doing at one time and then or progressively and then as soon as that part of the assessment is done being able to get in and actually start the restoration work so a little bit more more detail on the process and if there is opportunities there uh you know for for continuous Improvement yes ma'am and I also think that um again going back to communication um we can communicate earlier with our customers in advance of these storms the process that we'll use so that they understand it a bit more um we have a process that we use we implemented our plan that's what allowed us to achieve 50% um restoration uh within 2 days after the storm but we can do better to communicate customers for what they should expect to see and expect to not see and and so that assessment is critically important uh to be done to effectively use uh our crews but it has added some confusion um by our customers of what it is that we're doing uh when they don't see Crews actively working because they're waiting on those assessments to be completed so that is part of the better communication that we can do with our customers so they know what to expect you know when Hurricane Ike was the last major hurricane to hit our system from a wind event hurricane that was in 2008 more than 15 years ago and our uh service territory has grown a lot population wise since then uh so we need to take that into account in terms of how we communicate uh and to make sure that we're clearly explaining to customers what they should expect in especially in the early days uh when there are still so many customers out I think people can accommodate just about anything if they know what's going on and so so important that we talk about the types of communication that you're addressing as well as that ongoing Real Time Communication that's available through the tracker which I know you're working on as well agreed thank you yeah i' say I mean you know we've been fortunate like you said we had harv before that Ike that we haven't had anything since then and but you know and I think as as we had discussed you know using the same kind of playbook for communications probably outdated you know folks the public expects you know more communication more frequent communication different modes of communication and so I think it's it's definitely incumbent on all of us to to look at the the way we communicate going forward um you know because this commission you know the governor legislative leadership the speaker and the lieutenant governor expect improvements in all of this and I know the residents deserve and demand it and so we'll be working very closely with you and all the utilities and and other folks that we can help bring their expertise and understanding to Bear to to make sure that we uh help mitigate the impact of future storms like this so yes sir anything else for Jason thank you Jason thanks for being here y so I'd say to all the companies you know um you know reiterate those thanks to the to the line workers and those Crews both from Texas and and those that came in from other states for their efforts in in restoring this the system as quickly as possible and I'd also uh be remiss if I didn't thank all the folks at the state operations center that's our staff that's all the staff from the utilities from other sister agencies that have been working 24-hour shifts uh since last weekend or maybe even before uh to prepare for this and so we thank them for all their efforts as well Mr chairman um I have one thing to say and that