Ken Hoffman knows whom to blame for Houston's too slow Beryl recovery

Whew! What a relief. Tuesday afternoon, just one day after Hurricane Beryl ripped through Houston, I got an email from CenterPoint.

Dear (my name): Power has been restored to (my address).

Fantastic! I only had to endure one day of being without power during Houston’s 95-degree summer heat and humidity. Good on CenterPoint. I think I can probably save some of the food in my refrigerator.

Slight problem: My power was NOT back. My house was a sauna. There goes the box of chef Curtis Stone frozen gourmet burgers I bought off the Home Shopping Network.

Today is Friday – Day five of no power and dwindling hope of having my power restored before “sometime next week.” Next week! Actually, CenterPoint has no idea when power will be back on in Houston. They have left us in the dark.

I am so over CenterPoint. I wish I could pull the plug on CenterPoint so they know how it feels.

I am furious and defeated and powerless in so many ways. Everybody in Houston is angry. Social media is a powder keg. Beyond frustrating, across the street has power, the street behind me has power. I’m surrounded by homes with power. I can look through their window and see mom and dad and the kids watching the Astros game.

But my side of the street, just one block — no lights, no Internet, no cable TV, no air conditioning, no nothing. I have trouble sleeping because it’s so hot and drippy. When I do conk out for a couple of hours, I wake up in sheets soaked with sweat.

Last week I got an email from Thumbtack ranking Houston as the No. 9 “sweatiest city in the U.S.” Next time, after CenterPoint’s total poop show, Houston has to be Top 5 in perspiration.

I tried finding a hotel that takes dogs, but too late, not one available room anywhere. Next stop: Generac.

Failure crosses party lines
To be fair, it wasn’t just CenterPoint that stuck it to Houstonians in the wake of Beryl. There was enough incompetence on every level of government to go around.

Let’s start with Lina Hidalgo, the highest-ranking elected official in Harris County. She was nowhere to be found when Beryl drenched Houston with a foot of rain plus hurricane force winds on Monday.

“Like many over the July 4 weekend, I headed out of town on a pre-planned trip with the blessing of emergency management professionals when forecasts showed it was safe for me to leave.”

Hidalgo trusts weather forecasts? That’s so cute. She was given the okay to leave — by employees who work under her? That’s the kind of excuse I’d come up with. Here’s some advice for the county judge and all public officials. If a hurricane is barreling anywhere within 1,000 light years of Harris County – you stay home.

Just like Sen. Ted Cruz high-footin’ to Cancun during the Big Freeze, Hidalgo’s pre-planned trip crosses party lines for irresponsibility. By the way, all planned trips are “pre-planned.” That’s like Mattress Mack bragging that his zero-gravity couch is “non-scratch proof.” Just say scratch proof, Mack.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire turned hurricane press conferences into political photo ops. Count how many times he says, “my administration” or “the previous administration” or “I inherited …” We get it, you have no use for former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

Remember Whitmire bragging how prepared Houston was before the storm reached Texas? "No city handles a weather crisis like Houston does,” he said. Are you new around here? My lights flicker when it drizzles anywhere south of Dallas. But to his credit, Whitmire is on the job day and night. He’s kicking ass but not taking names because he’s too busy kicking ass. I’ve got a feeling that heads will roll.

For its part, the state unleashed the four scariest words to hear in an emergency: Acting Governor Dan Patrick. His main role post-Beryl is pointing fingers at Judge Hidalgo for failed response. The real governor, Greg Abbott, was another no-show. He’s in Asia trying to drum up business for Texas on a trade mission.

The primary villain
Then there’s CenterPoint, the primary villain. I’ve never seen a more dysfunctional response to an emergency than CenterPoint’s mishandling of restoring power. Hundreds of thousands of Houston area residents still are held prisoner by CenterPoint’s failure to deliver.

CenterPoint either completely underestimated the destructive force of the storm or is simply too incompetent to deal with getting power restored. Residents complain that repair trucks are idling by the curb doing nothing while drivers say they are waiting for instructions. If a hurricane is a natural disaster then CenterPoint is a man-made catastrophe. Whoever’s running the CenterPoint show has gotta go.

Houston has extreme weather. It’s the price we pay for living on the Gulf Coast. CenterPoint had a week to prepare for Beryl, it knew power would go out, and still was unable to deal with the storm’s aftermath.

It happens every time. It will happen next time. And we will put up with their excuses.

You know who I feel sorry for? It’s the person at Houston First whose job it is to lure conventions and tourists here. Yeah, I’ll bring my convention and 10,000 attendees to Houston where the power goes out and doesn’t come back for a week.

We’re all over the national news and late night talk shows. The jokes write themselves: The “Energy Capital of the World is without power.”

It ain’t funny.