Houston’s Grid Gets a Hurricane-Ready Makeover
After last summer’s outages, CenterPoint Energy completes key infrastructure upgrades ahead of storm season.
When Hurricane Beryl swept through Houston last summer, it left more than two million households without power—and raised tough questions about how prepared the region really was. In the aftermath, CenterPoint Energy launched a broad resiliency plan aimed at fortifying the grid and shoring up public trust.
Now, with hurricane season back on the calendar, the utility says the most critical work is done. That includes installing 26,000 storm-hardened poles, relocating 400 miles of power lines underground, and deploying more than 5,100 automation devices designed to detect outages and speed up system recovery.
CenterPoint Energy powers more than 7 million homes across Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, and Texas—making its storm-readiness efforts in Houston part of a much broader reliability equation. The latest slate of upgrades speaks directly to the vulnerabilities exposed last year—and marks a step toward a more adaptive, weather-ready energy system.
Still, the effort hasn’t been without scrutiny. Following the storm, CenterPoint’s emergency strategy—including an $800 million lease of mobile generators—prompted an audit by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. The review, conducted by Moss Adams, concluded that while the utility’s procurement policy generally aligned with best practices, it lacked formal risk assessments and conflict-of-interest checks.
In response, CenterPoint acknowledged its internal processes are “still maturing” and committed to implementing real-time safeguards to improve oversight and transparency. “We note that we did nevertheless consider the risks presented by the potential counterparties,” the company wrote in a filing, signaling a willingness to adapt even amid external pressure.
Another major focus has been digital readiness. During Beryl, a breakdown in CenterPoint’s outage tracker left many customers without timely updates—compounding an already difficult situation. Since then, the utility has reengineered the system from the ground up, migrating it to the cloud and testing it against demand levels six times greater than last year’s traffic. The rebuilt tracker is now fully scalable and less vulnerable to the same disruptions it previously faced.
CenterPoint estimates its 2025 investments will reduce outages by more than 125 million minutes annually. And while no system can promise perfection in the face of climate-fueled storms, the company says these upgrades mark a meaningful shift in both preparedness and performance.
“Finishing this vital work ahead of the 2025 hurricane season underscores our commitment to enhancing the resiliency and reliability of our infrastructure,” said CenterPoint President and CEO Jason Wells.
The real test, of course, will come with the next storm. But this season, Houston starts from a stronger position than last year—with new poles in the ground, a smarter grid in play, and expectations set.
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What’s New—and How CenterPoint’s Grid Upgrades Could Impact You
For the thousands of families across Houston impacted by Hurricane Beryl, these upgrades aren’t just about infrastructure—they’re about keeping your lights on, your food cold, and your phone working when it matters most. Here’s how CenterPoint’s latest improvements could make a difference this storm season:
If you lost power during Hurricane Beryl, you're not alone.
Roughly 8 out of 10 Houston households did too. CenterPoint says its upgrades could prevent that level of system-wide failure this time around.The outage map that crashed during Beryl?
It’s now cloud-based and tested to handle 6x more traffic—so if the lights go out, you’ll actually get the updates you need.125 million minutes of outage reduction.
That’s thousands of households getting through dinner, bedtime, and the next morning without tossing groceries, sitting in the dark, or charging their phones in the car.
These upgrades won’t change the forecast—but they could change how prepared you feel when it hits.