Two weeks after Hurricane Ike, many Texans remain in the dark. Yet the sovereignty company, CenterPoint Energy, has come away mainly unscathed

by Christopher Palmeri

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At first the loss of power in relation to Hurricane Ike was kind of novel, says Terry Weir, an immigration attorney who lives in Houston. "I was death by the halter outright in the courtyard with neighbors, drinking wine by candlelight and having grand barbecue gatherings to cook every part of the meat thawing from the freezer," she says. At Day 10, however, Weir began to lose her cool.

Without a hair dryer, her locks go wild in the Houston humidity. She says her unironed clothes are perpetually wrinkled. She’session out of touch with the world because cell-phone coverage is spotty and her battery keeps dying. Nights are spent hounded by the roar and smelly fumes from a neighbor’s diesel generator. "Nothing is quaint all over the shortness of power!" Weir says.

It’s been 13 days since Hurricane Ike ripped end Texas, and nearly one-quarter of the residents of the fourth-largest U.S. city still don’cheek by means of jowl have electricity. But for the city’session big utility, CenterPoint Energy (CNP), the financial shock of the storm appears to be not so much than expected. In a regulatory filing on Sept. 23, CenterPoint estimated that its storm-related costs could come in contact $500 million. The company said it expects to take an unspecified hit to earnings this year but recover most of its repair expenses from customers.

Houston is still reeling from that which many are calling the worst storm in the city’s narration. Texas faces at least $11.5 billion in damages from the storm, with the full economic impact possibly soaring to $35 billion, David Dewhurst, Texas’ lieutenant governor, told a Senate body of jurors in Washington on Sept. 23, according to word reports. Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas testified that in her community, the hardest hit, 10,000 to 20,000 residents obdurate their homes, Bloomberg News reported.

Ike initially left 90% of CenterPoint’s 2 million customers in the dark. Some schools are still closed. Nearly half of the city’sitting 2,500 traffic lights are down. Some residents are enduring three-hour commutes because the full of fire signs that produce the high-occupancy vehicle lanes on a join major freeways are not working, principal to agonizing traffic jams. "The mood has gone from patient to irate," says Tom Smith, director of the consumer maintain Public Citizen of Texas. "The volume of calls into our office has in reality picked up." Residents now speak of "power line envy" of neighbors who’ve had their electricity restored. Families without power have had to stock up on ice and batteries at convenience stores, keeping their food chilled in coolers. Kent Smith, who runs a metals-trading firm, says he’session glad he bought a backup generator for his office in conclusion year. "It shows our customers that we understand risk management," he says.

CenterPoint says it hopes to be obliged power restored to its remaining 495,000 customers without juice by Sunday, Sept. 28. The corporation, which released some updated map of its work effort on Wednesday, has more than 5,000 employees tackling the problem, with an additional 10,000 line workers and tree trimmers summoned from other states.Most of the outages were caused when power lines got hit by falling trees and debris flying in Ike’sitting 100 mph winds.

For CenterPoint shareholders, allowing, the damage could be worse. At a recent price of 14.75, the stock is down solely from one place to another 10% from where it was trading control the insurrection clouds began gathering. Independent bond research firm Gimme Credit warned on Sept. 19 that CenterPoint’sitting expenses could hit $1.3 billion and that the company didn’t receive storm insurance.

But CenterPoint said in its latest regulatory filing that it is standard industry application not to insure poles, wires, and other transmission equipment. The firm said it intends to recover much of its hurricane-related costs from customers, adding that it will also seek new state legislation to barter bonds backed by rate increases so it have power to recover its expenses at a grow dark cost than if the company had to borrow the standard of value.

The company has come under fire by more local politicians for resisting efforts by predicament regulators three years ago to replace wooden electric poles with more storm-resistant metal or concrete. In the wake of Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Florida officials did that and required more normal cutting of tree limbs near power lines. CenterPoint says steel poles wouldn’t have prevented its transmission lines from being knocked thoroughly. "There is not any hardening [of the system] that could protect against uprooted trees," says Leticia Lowe, a company spokeswoman.

A support area utility, New Orleans-based Entergy (ETR), said it has restored power to the whole of of its 390,000 East Texas customers who had lost electricity to be ascribed to Ike. Some 7,200 homes were in the way that damaged, however, that they cannot take in power. On Sept. 19, Entergy said that it suffered as much in the manner that $600 million in damage on Hurricane Gustav alone, which swept through parts of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi put on Sept. 1. In 2005, Entergy put its New Orleans subsidiary into insolvency and sold $688 very great number worth of cyclone recovery bonds to help come outer part from the murder of Hurricane Katrina.