CenterPoint Energy carried out its annual full-scale emergency response exercise on May 14, 2026, at its Emergency Operations Center in Houston, simulating a Category 3 hurricane hitting the Greater Houston area.
More than 400 CenterPoint team members took part in the drill, along with about 100 state and local officials, emergency management officials, first responder partners and emergency experts who observed the exercise. The company said the event was part of an ongoing effort to strengthen its emergency preparedness and response work ahead of the 2026 hurricane season.
The drill put teams from Electric and Gas Operations, Emergency Planning & Response, Customer, Communications and other groups through a series of tasks centered on reviewing weather forecasts and potential impacts, analyzing damage prediction models, coordinating with emergency responders and communicating restoration information to customers and leaders. CenterPoint said it would use feedback from third-party expert evaluators to further improve its response readiness.
Jesus Soto Jr. said preparing for natural disasters before they happen and simulating the effectiveness of the company's response and plans is vital to improving how it performs when future storms and hurricanes strike. He said the exercise builds on preparedness actions taken throughout the year, as well as continued infrastructure investments made under the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative to strengthen the electric grid.
That initiative was launched in 2024, and CenterPoint said the latest drill is one more step in a year-long effort to prepare for hurricane season while trying to deliver the level of performance customers expect. Soto said the combination of actions is meant to help the utility restore power safely and more quickly for the millions of customers and families who depend on it.
The timing matters because the company is moving into another hurricane season with Houston still a key test case for its response plans. What happens next is whether the changes tested on May 14 translate into faster, cleaner restoration when a real storm reaches the region.
