Hurricane Beryl caused some significant power outages in Houston, and with temperatures in the 90s, it’s a dangerous, miserable situation all around. It’s bad enough that many utility workers came in from out of state to assist with the attempts to restore power across the city. Instead of being greeted by grateful residents expressing their appreciation, though, some utility workers have been threatened, assaulted and even shot at. Things got so bad that Texas Governor Greg Abbott was forced to address it, Click2Houston reports.
So far, at least one person has been arrested for pulling a gun on a utility worker and pointing it at him. The most disturbing report we’ve heard so far, though, comes from CenterPoint Energy, which said one of its crews experienced a drive-by shooting at one of its staging sites. As a result, CenterPoint closed that site, slowing down its repair efforts.
“If you’re interfering with somebody who’s trying to get the power back up, you’re not speeding up the process of getting the power back on; you’re slowing that process down,” Abbott told Houston residents.
Several local leaders also held a press conference on Sunday, begging people to leave utility workers alone. Ed Allen, Business Manager for IBEW Local 66, said:
I’ve had several companies already tell me Ed, if it doesn’t stop, we are going to get in our trucks and drive off. In 42 years in this industry, working here in this community, I have never seen a response like this from the community.
We’ve had guys who have had guns pulled on them, we’ve got guys who have had rocks picked up and slung at them. I had a crew out in Sugarland, they had guys, with AK-47′s standing across from them. Never pointed it at them but menacing them.
We just are so much better than this.
Considering how dangerous it is to go without power when it’s that hot outside and how unreliable Texas’s electrical grid is, it’s understandable that residents would be incredibly frustrated. At the same time, the workers aren’t the ones making those decisions. It’s the politicians and power executives who need to be held accountable, not the people actually doing the work to get the power back on. And that’s especially true of workers who traveled in from out of state to help out.