KHOU 11 Investigates: How much did CenterPoint spend on tree maintenance last year?

Records show that compared to other utility companies serving Greater Houston, CenterPoint was second to last when it comes to spending on tree maintenance.

[Max_Maximus_]

I hope KHOU stays on this, because it is probably the leading cause of all the outages. Its quite outrageous and they need to be held accountable, and at the very least, come up with a much better plan. I know in our neighborhood, power lines run through tree tops, which is unacceptable.

[jrp]

Glad to see KHOU isn't running PR cover for Centerpoint in this mess. Keep digging

[qingjie]

KHOU is the BEST and TOP reporter and investigator right now around Houston! Good job!

[PoundNetTexas]

I blame the PUC oversight. They are not doing their job if they allowed a big rate increase last year with no proof of how the money is used. This is a Texas legislature problem.

[SuperMaosy]

not a surprising news anymore... so numb to these monopolized companies that do whatever they want and nothing really serious punishment result from it.

[leerubin]

Don't worry, they will just up the rates and pay off the Govenor.

[SFAPowerhouse]

All of a sudden, I don't feel that bad about my Entergy Bill. I lost power for only 4 hours in Beryl. Thanks, Entergy, for a great, timely response!

[justincase]

Remember when corruption was the exception, and not the norm?

[a.walters]

ENTERGY, a company 1/4 the size of Centerpoint, spent 4 times as much money and manpower in tree trimming prevention…

[tdfemcee]

But I mean, they let the trees grow and didn't think the power lines next to big trees would not get damaged??? I mean, they could have worked on it every month and that way they wouldn't have to spend so much money all at once? Also, all the power lines are hanging over our heads...I wonder what the heck have they been doing? We pay 200-300 a month and renters pay even more.

[elr.]

Centerpoint doing tree maintenance on the cheap, trying to save those dollars.

[TheRealCristiann]

it may be counterpoints fault but it aint the linemen fault

[DarkBadger]

How about spend to bury the damn lines like the rest of the country does!?

[a.walters]

Laziness and greed. This is what it all comes down to. Mostly greed.

[JCF]

There's always a back and forth. Center point says it's the City's responsibility. The City says it's the homeowners. Just pointing fingers

[droid]

If the primary cause of major outages is an entire tree falling onto power lines, then no amount of "trimming" is going to solve that. The video doesn't really make clear what causes the majority of outages when a tree is involved. I'd like to know if it really is mainly just the limbs, like the video implies.

Edit: I thought about my reasoning and I am probably wrong. The branches and leaves act as the "sail" which the wind catches and uses to drag over the whole tree. Trimming the the branches would reduce the chance of the whole tree being dragged over I believe. So this news story is probably right.

[georgeberg]

Can anyone imagine what happens if CP goes in a yard a starts cutting down 75 to 100 year old oak or pine trees and tells the owner don't worry it's to help prevent outages?

[johnwojcik]

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[ClementinesmWTF]

KHOU…glad you’re doing this, but fallen trees that you showed that are the largest cause of power outages are not the same as “tree maintenance”. Austin Energy’s lack of tree maintenance last year during the 2023 winter/ice storm are an example of the City of Austin’s ineptitude, but this is not. If you want to argue that “tree maintenance” involves cutting down all large trees in the vicinity of any power line, then, that’s…certainly a choice of some kind, but it’s not a wise one anyone would appreciate.

The real cause was the NHC and NOAA’s refusal to do any analysis of the hurricane’s path other than lacking computational models. That isn’t to say they aren’t useful…not at all. But they shouldn’t be entirely relying on those deterministic models. The storm steered further eastward as it always seems to and they didn’t tell anyone up until it was actually “predicted” to by them. That left power (and Internet) companies unprepared for the true aftermath of what was coming—there’s a huge difference between the scale of destruction of a south Texas storm and a Houston, Texas storm.

Should those companies be prepared for the ineptitude of the federal government predictions? Sure, you could argue that. But can you blame them this much when we were all ill prepared because of the federal government (the most hardy source of certainty) predictions? Hardly. Stop sucking at the teat of views when it’s so clearly poorly treated analytically. Hell, if it’s views you’re after, you could be getting more by talking about the true reason no one else is…

[tvbhk]

I believe Centerpoint is not able to take care of so many customers. The government should be considering not allowing them to handle the power lines for so many customers. The government should only allow one company to take care of small portions of the power lines. Shouldn't the Houston mayor and government take responsibility too?