Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demands investigation into power outages in Hurricane Beryl's wake

Gov. Greg Abbott wants an investigation into why more than 2 million Texans lost power after Hurricane Beryl barreled ashore Monday and why up to one-fourth of them might have to wait until next week before their electricity is fully restored.

"What I'm going to be doing immediately is instructing the Public Utility Commission to undertake an immediate study to find out why this is repeatedly happening in Houston, Texas," Abbott told Bloomberg TV in an interview from Asia where he is on an extended trade mission. "They should not be losing power."

The target of Abbott's ire was CenterPoint Energy, an electricity transmission company that serves the Houston area where the outages have been concentrated.

CenterPoint executive Jason Ryan went before the Public Utility Commission on Thursday and was questioned about the outages and asked what was being done to restore power.

More: CenterPoint, Entergy receive backlash on social media for Houston power outage response

"We know that we have a lot of work to do. We will not stop the work until it is done," Ryan told commissioners. "To our customers that not only have power out, but have significant property damage from the trees we talked about coming up from the roots, our hearts go out to you and our hearts go out to our community."

In his Bloomberg interview, Abbott said the findings of any investigation should be forwarded to the Legislature, which can recommend remedies once lawmakers return to Austin in January for the 2025 session.

"I want to find out, was there a structural flaw with regard to the electrical delivery system?" Abbott said. "Was that the cause of it? If so, what needs to be done to shore up, or was this a personnel issue of not having enough power personnel in all the right locations to get power back up?"

Ryan told the PUC that planning to meet the challenges Beryl was expected to bring began while the storm was still out at sea and continued through the long Fourth of July holiday weekend. He said a workforce of about 12,000 was in place before Beryl made landfall near Matagorda early Monday.

"We also opened 18 staging sites that were located strategically throughout our service territory, where they could be closest to the work when they end their work every day and start every morning," Ryan said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What Texas Gov. Abbott is saying about Hurricane Beryl power outages