CENTERPOINT SVP DARIN CARROLL, Joins Houston Morning News, July 12th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Houston's Morning News. Joining us thismorning, Centerpoint Senior vice president Darren Carroll.

(00:04):
We appreciate you coming on the show, Darren very much. Certainly,
good morning you. BET's let's addressthe story that's going around that one of
the reasons that we have crews sittingidly in parking lots and not out there
actually fixing anything is because contracts havenot been worked out with some of the
out of state energy providers. Isthat true and if so, why that

(00:25):
is simply not true? Yeah,all of that work is done well before
Cruiser dispatched our area, and youknow, it's just unsubstantiated, not true.
We pay all those folks and havecontracts in place well before, well
before we need them. There areso many people in this heat. And
there's also the fact of the watersystems. I mean, it's one thing

(00:47):
to not even be able to runa fan in your house because you have
no power, but when you can'trely on the water system. So when
it comes to prioritizing, why wasthe convention center not made priority so we
could get people in there where theycould they could have some cool air during
the day, or why did largefacilities like that not get their power.

(01:07):
Why did they not get on thepriority list or were they and you just
weren't simply able to deliver. Yeah, I mean you can imagine an event
like this. There are just alot of priorities and we have to work
through those in a way that makesthe most sense, and we do so
in collaboration with you know, localofficials, community leaders and other folks and
so so there are going to beexamples where you know, in hindsight,

(01:30):
you say, what about this oneor what about that one? But you
know the fact of the matter isthat we're not working in a vacuum,
and we work with our communities andmaking those decisions. Virtually every community leader,
sir, that we have talked toover the course last couple of days
has said that communication with you justhasn't happened, that they've been impossible to
reach, difficult to talk to,and it been very stingy with the information.

(01:52):
Yeah. First I just want tosay, look, we understand the
frustration of our communities and you know, those folks that are that are most
impacted by this, and we ownthe fact that our communications can be better.
We're doing a lot of after actyou. We did that after the
Draicho implemented some new things during thisstorm, and you know, we'll be
doing things different going forward based onfeedback we're received from this event. Did

(02:13):
you have anybody at Harris County,because you certainly didn't at Galveston County.
We've heard directly from these judges inGalveston County they were not able to even
get you on the telephone to findto get find out what was going on
so they could impart the information.They got immediate response from the State of
Texas. Now we've learned from theState of Texas that our county judge,

(02:35):
Lena Hidalgo didn't bother to ask forany help. Were you in communication with
Lena Hidalgo of Harris Country, Yeah, we're, Yes, we were,
and we're in constant communication with officialsin all of our communities that are impacted.
You know, many of them standup their own emergency operations centers.
We have people plugged in you knowat all of those. Uh you know,

(02:55):
we do daily calls with with lotsof different folks out there on call.
So you know, we're connected withwith our officials and all of our
communities. It didn't happen, theysaid it didn't happen. They couldn't get
you on the phone, You wouldn'trespond until now. Maybe you are,
but you weren't in the height ofeverything when they really needed the knowledge.

(03:16):
Yeah, I can't speak to thatspecific instance, but you know, I
do know that we have folks pluggedinto all these emergency operations centers in a
constant contact. The state says thatthere's going to be an investigation, the
governor says there's going to be investigation. The mayor wants an investigation. Are
you concerned about doing business in theHouston Greater Houston area going forward? Are

(03:38):
you concerned what sort of an investigationmight be done and what it might mean
to your company? No, No, we've got nothing to hide. We're
proud of our preparation. We're proudof our response. We'll be happy to
have those contations and share, youknow, anything that they want to know.
And we're not concerned about, youknow, doing business in this area

(03:59):
going forward. Or we're proud ofwhat we do for the community. We're
proud of what we do for ourcustomers and and we we certainly understand the
mission and you know, the servicethat we provide. We learn from everything
that every event that happens, Sowhat would you change moving forward for the
next one, because there will bea next one certainly. Yeah. Communication

(04:20):
is a big piece of that.Again, we've we've owned that, We've
said that there are things that wecan do better. Everybody has talked about
the audite tracker being down since theDurho. You know, we're going to
have a new version of that upand running here in the next couple of
weeks for folks to use, andwe're doing a whole lot of things on
the back end to to make surethat we're able to communicate more effectively going
forward. So that would be prioritynumber one for us. Nice sir,

(04:43):
well good luck. That is inget the power back quickly. That is
Senior Vice put too late for quickly, but as soon as you can see
the point SVP Darren Carroll, itis seven