Blog 3180 – 07.16.2024

The Powers That Be

After a little more than a week of power outage due to Hurricane Beryl coming to H-Town (Houston), early yesterday evening our power came back on. I have been critical of Center Point Energy’s lack of investment in clearing trees on its right-a-ways and it being ill-prepared to get the power outages addressed quickly. This is the second time we have been without power for over a week in just a few months, the first due to the high straight line winds of a derecho

and the second time a week ago when Beryl made landfall just southwest of Galveston leaving Houston on the wet side with still Category 1 hurricane force winds as she passed by Houston.

Critical though I may be of our privately held once public utility companies for being more concerned with generating return on investment for their stock holders than maintaining the infrastructure that they have been entrusted with and providing services and reliability to their customers, I am nevertheless grateful to all the contractors and Center Point Energy crews that worked long and hard hours to get our power back up and running.

There is a reason that we as a country once believed that some business should not be privately owned for profit enterprises, but rather publicly financed and administered. These critical services were considered the public trust and we the people trusted them to be there for us and not just to generate profits with little regard to investing in, maintaining, and improving reliability and service.

There will be investigations and promises of more government oversight, better customer service, and more commiserate investment in tree clearance, hardening of the power grid, and disaster preparedness, but little will change because the business model is aways maximizing profits while minimizing investment. These are no longer public utilities, but private businesses whose allegiance is first and foremost to their investors and not to the public trust.

It is never good business to not put customers first.

Historically those businesses who fail to take care of their customers go out of business as they should. Arrogant companies, be they the utility service companies or big box retailers who fail to consider the customers, always lose out to those who will. Even Center Point Energy and mighty Walmart can and will be replaced by companies more attuned to customers needs and wants. Hey finally some encouraging words.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White