CenterPoint failed the people of Houston. They should pay us.

English:Re: “How CenterPoint is ripping off Houstonians. And why we still can’t count on our power grid.” (July 17): We have hurricanes in Houston. There always have been and there always will be. So tell me why, as a society, we still haven’t figured out that we should have no power lines above ground? Why don’t our city leaders (or state leaders, for that matter) pass a law requiring new communities to have all their power lines underground? Why don’t our leaders require that all existing power lines be underground as well? I understand that it’s going to cost money. However, it will ultimately save us money in the long run.

What happened with Hurricane Beryl is a complete farce and a travesty. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. It was a Category 1 storm. CenterPoint made a big mistake. The only way to fix CenterPoint’s problems is to hit them in the pocketbook. A city administrator in Houston told me she thought CenterPoint should be forced to pay every homeowner $1,000 for every day the power was out, even for an hour.

Why isn’t CenterPoint required to do preventative tree maintenance throughout the year? They should be trimming trees and other items around all power lines every month. Lord knows we pay enough to cover these costs. Until we force them to do something, this type of behavior from CenterPoint will continue.

Nick Nicholson, Sugar Land

Regarding “CenterPoint Has Deep Roots in Houston and Deep Pockets for Texas Politicians” (July 16): Chris Tomlinson seems to have hit the nail on the head. As soon as I had the power outage, I told myself not to worry, that everything would be back up shortly. Instead, it took seven days and nights of hell before I got relief from the high temperatures. And I pay my CenterPoint bill on time.

Hard-working citizens deserve better than this, deserve at least a refuge in their own home.

This is not possible when we vote for people who betray us. They work to line their own pockets by kowtowing to greedy shareholders, who then get rich off the penalties we pay in new CenterPoint fees. We want to trust the people we vote for to look out for our best interests. More and more, from the highest office to the lowest, it seems our politicians are working against us. Taxation without representation.

Audrey Schambon, Houston

Regarding “CenterPoint says some customers may not have power until Friday due to ‘interlocking outages.’ What is this?” (July 15): Yesterday I received an email titled “I’m concerned about you.” My friend had just heard about the power outages and was concerned that I was suffering from the heat and lack of air conditioning. He was right. I was on day 8 without power and was getting more and more irritable by the minute. I had received several similar emails, but what was remarkable about this one was that the sender lives in Texas and doesn’t have air conditioning every day, so I thought it was pretty extraordinary that he would think of me.

He is of course incarcerated in one of our fine prisons, where we do not consider inmates to be worthy of even the most basic necessities of survival like air conditioning (and we complain when we don’t have it for a few days!). He often skips dinner because he has to stand in line in the sun, and therefore get even hotter, to get his meager portion, and he doesn’t think it’s worth it.

So, as we lament our situation, perhaps we should think of this state’s justice system and advocate for better treatment of our family members, friends, and yes, even those we don’t know, who are treated so inhumanely. Oddly enough, our laws protect dogs and cats from being placed in shelters above a certain temperature, but not our fellow human beings.