Hurricane Preparedness Center

Gov. Perry Signs Hurricane Recovery Bill for Utilities and Customers

On Thursday, April 16, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law a way for utilities to recover more quickly from hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Sponsored by Sen. Tommy Williams and Rep. Senfronia Thompson, Senate Bill 769 authorizes the Public Utility Commision of Texas (PUCT) to permit an electric utility to issue low-cost bonds to recover restoration costs and easing the burden of post-disaster recovery on Texas electric companies and their customers.

“With every storm, we examine our recovery approaches to do better next time.” Gov. Perry said. “The bill I am signing today will help us prepare even better for the next storm and recover more quickly when it has gone.”

Bond financing (or "securitization") has been used before following Hurricane Rita in 2005.  The new law intruduces a mechanism to cover costs from Hurricane Ike as well as enabling the PUCT to permit financing without requiring new legislation.  This will allow Texas energy companies  the financial agility to respond quickly to future storms.

2009 Hurricane Season Forcast Revised

On April 9, Colorado State University hurricane forecasters issued their forecast of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season.  The team of researchers William Gray and Phil Klotzbach have lowered the numbers of their first 2009 forecast, dated December 10, 2008, from 14 named storms in the Atlantic Basin to 12.  They foresee this storm activity as average. 

Klotzbach said the new forecast is based on factors including anomalous cooling of tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures and the curent weak La Nina conditions in the Pacific transistioning to neutral.  A weak El Nino condition may arise later this year.

El Nino is a warming in the eastern Pacific Ocean that can have such far-reaching effects as changing wind patterns in the eastern Atlantic, which can disrupt the formation of hurricanes. A La Nina is a cooling of the same eastern Pacific region.

The current estimate is 12 named storms lasting 55 days.  There will be 6 hurricanes lasting 25 days.  Two of these hurricanes will be intense (Category 3-4-5) lasting 5 days.

Also forecast was an average probability for one major hurricane (Category 3-4-5) making landfall on the following each of the following costal areas:

Entire U.S. coastline: 54%

U.S. East Coast including Florida peninsula:  32%

Gulf Coast; Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, TX: 30%

You can check the predicted hurricane landfall probability for your county at the United States Landfalling Hurricane Probability Project.