13 Investigates gets inside look power poles of the 'future'

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- As Hurricane Beryl downed power lines across southwest Texas, some of the utility poles still standing are not the typical wooden ones that split and cracked this week.

Edgar Castro, plant director at Resilient Structures, said the company's composite poles, which it previously sold to CenterPoint, are still standing.

Castro said the poles, made from woven fiberglass, are hollow, so equipment and wires can be stored inside them rather than on the outside and exposed to the elements.

"We don't know what kind of hurricanes or storms we will get in the future, but up to now, they do withstand all the recent hurricane activity and tornado activity and inclement weather that Houston has seen," Castro said.

Resilient Structures opened a distribution center in Humble to eventually manufacture the composite poles locally.

CenterPoint has already purchased thousands of these poles, and Rob Krotee, executive VP at Resilient Structures, said they're still standing after Beryl.

"I don't know if I would call them indestructible, but we've advertised, and we say we've never lost a pole to a weather event," Krotee said.

The durability comes at a cost of about $5,000 per composite pole. But Resilient Structures says its poles are cheaper to transport, install, and maintain and longer-lasting, which makes them a deal in the long run.

CenterPoint said this week hardening its infrastructure is a priority.

But, despite spending $1.46 billion over the last five years to improve its infrastructure, CenterPoint Energy admits that insufficient resiliency work was done before the Category 1 hurricane that left millions of people without power this week.

Jason Ryan, CenterPoint's executive vice president of regulatory services and government affairs, told 13 Investigates on Wednesday that the company's 1,000-page "Resiliency Plan" will help strengthen its local infrastructure for future extreme weather events.

Ryan said the state should approve the plan submitted to the Public Utilities Commission earlier this year by the end of the year.

According to the plan, CenterPoint estimates spending $376 million to harden its transmission system from 2025 to 2027. Much of that money would replace old wooden power poles with stronger poles.

Ryan said the company has done some work over the last few years to replace its old wooden poles with composite poles like the ones Resilient Structures manufactures.

According to the plan it submitted to the state, CenterPoint has already spent $1.46 billion on resiliency over the last five years and expects to spend $1.45 billion more from 2025 to 2027 to improve its infrastructure.

"We are going to have to continue this resilience (and) spend over the course of the next decade to get to where we want to get to with the increasingly extreme storms that we're facing here in Houston," Ryan said.

Castro said the poles have been rated to withstand 6,000 pounds of force, meaning they can withstand a category five hurricane. He said that even if the soil conditions or foundation can't survive, having a stronger pole means residents can have their utilities restored quicker.

"You'll start seeing them in your community. They've got a glossy feature; they're brown by design. We've got them in different colors," he said. "If you start seeing them in your community, that's the effort from the local community leaders and the utility providers to get these out to harden the grid in anticipation for these kinds of disruptive events."

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