Thursday, September 25, 2008

Are we done yet?

Dear Houston / Centerpoint Energy / whomever the hell cares...

I live in a lovely neighborhood on the Northwest side of Houston called Oak Forest. We have a few lovely parks, trails around the bayous, and quaint Ranch house's via the 1940-1950's. We still, after the storm, have beautiful trees all around.
Although our area is so pretty and well known, we seem to have been forgotten. While Centerpoint puts our zip code in the "By Monday" list, we continue to go without power. After we are updated to the "By Thursday" list, things don't look like they are going our way. I find it extremely hard to believe that only 22% of our fair city is without power when your maps clearly shows you have 50% of the metro area alone to work on.
I went by my lonely house today to get mail and clothing, and water my pretty begonias. Not one spec of tree branch or twigs has been removed from our streets/curbs. Every house is dark. My neighbor was taking a nap in his driveway on a lawn chair so that he could stay cool.
I would like to know how the 2nd largest neighborhood has been left behind. I would like to know how our projected date is today, yet for the past 3 days, we continue to have 44% of our zip code down (per your "estimate.")
Please remember we exist. My neighbor across the street is on oxygen and shouldn't be in this heat. We are all rallying to help by cooking and running extension cords to generators (except one guy, but we won't deal with that just yet) but that doesn't change how warm it is.
I do realize that an enormous storm came through our fair city. I do realize that Galveston needs a lot of help. But... you sent all your extra crews home before the job was finished. This doesn't make me feel like you are making progress, this makes me feel like you have lost the momentum.
We all want this even to be behind us. While there will be months of rebuilding, the first step would be getting everyone back up with power so we are well rested and efficient.

If you won't turn my power back on, then please, just update your map to a realistic date so we can stop getting our hopes up and just be surprised when the power is on before October.

Thank you.

2 comments:

Donald said...

They sent the extra crews home?? What?????????

WHY?

The Riddle Family said...

OH MY FREAKING GOD! Your power is still not on? I would be raising hell, and buying a generator! That's just insane.