The need for more power, more electricity, more light was brought home in a sometimes somber press conference Thursday as Mayor John Whitmire and Acting Police Chief Larry Satterwhite talked about the tragic death the night before of Harris County Deputy Fernando Esqueda.
According to Satterwhite and an account posted online by Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, Esqueda was one of a number of officers searching for a man identified as Ronnie Palmer who allegedly earlier in the evening had pistol whipped an employee at Little Ceasar’s Pizza on Wallisville Road, saying his order was messed up.
Investigators believe that Esqueda spotted the man’s car, but didn’t realize he was inside or nearby and was ambushed and shot repeatedly. Taken to the hospital, Esqueda did not survive. Satterwhite said officers were still looking for Palmer Thursday.
Whitmire asked for a moment of prayer for Esqueda before explaining the next steps the city is taking to better protect residents, more than a million of whom remained without power Thursday. (down from the 2.3 million original customers who lost service from Monday’s storm). The city is bringing in 100 officers from other jurisdictions — along with their own police vehicles so don’t be surprised when you see a Dallas PDncruiser — to help patrol the parts of the city where lighting is most absent. Asked to pinpoint where that was, Satterwhite said it was all over.
Whitmire said the city needs 2,000 more police officers and 500 more firefighters. To deal most repeatedly with the Beryl aftermath, these additional officers will be in addition to the Texas Department of Public Safety troopers who have been here already. This will also give a brak to officers who have been working 12-hour shifts and who have their own families they need to help.
The usual CenterPoint representative was not present at Thursday afternoon’s press conference and Whitmire said several times that the city is “pressuring” CenterPoint to restore electricity more quickly. CenterPoint did not meet a proposed goal of restoring power to all but a million people by 5 p.m. Wednesday and with the afternoon rains Thursday more slowdowns could be expected.
Satterwhite said overall they weren’t seeing a spike in crime but the number of traffic crashes has jumped enormously.
“We have 1,400 traffic lights out of order.,” Whitmire said. “I want the public to know that energy, electricity is also a very high priority. We wouldn’t be having this discussion if we had electricity.”
“At 7 a.m. I was on the phone to the CEO of CenterPoint letting him know that they must do better. They must communicate better. So yes, wer’re going to hold CenterPoint accountable when we do an action review. But right now the focus is on ‘get the lights on.'”
With estimates from CenterPoint that even with their best efforts that half a million people in Houston will still be without power next week, concern is mounting along with high temperatures in the area.
Saying he had something to say on “a silly note” to clear up, Whitmire addressed his comments of the other day in which he criticized the fact that the Astros could have a ball game with lights on while ten fire stations did not have energy or a backup generator.
“I was not criticizing the Astros. I was criticizing quite frankly CenterPoint and the City of Houston,” he clarified. “That we have to have priorities. If we can furnish electricity to a ballpark then we can sure as heck have [electricity at] our convention centers and fire stations.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
