Lake Travis - Westlake Edition | February 2023

LOSING POWER When Winter Storm Mara went through Texas on Jan. 31-Feb. 3, it knocked out power for many residents in the area who use Austin Energy or Pedernales Electric Cooperative. Here is a look at how many individuals were aected at the peak of outages for each service area.

many areas. AE has maintained that better veg- etation management would not have made a huge dierence due to the severity of the storm. Michael Webber, professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas and a former AE commissioner, said he believes overall the city-owned utility performed relatively well under the circumstances. Webber agreed a more aggressive trimming approach likely would not have made a signicant dierence in this year’s weather event due to heavy ice accumulation aecting trees and branches well outside the bounds of the vegetation program. However, council voted Feb. 9 to call for an audit into tree management. While moving power lines under- ground could run the city billions of dollars, Webber said it is something that should be seriously explored. “The undergrounding is more expensive upfront; it is slower to bring back if it goes down; it’s harder to do repairs underground than above ground. But it’s more robust; it fails less often,” he said. Boil-water notices In addition to power outages, residents throughout the Lake Tra- vis-Westlake region were also hit with water outages and boil-water notices, an issue that requires res- idents to boil water used in food preparation, drinking, bathing and brushing teeth. Two water provid- ers in Westlake experienced ser- vice interruptions, including WCID 10 and Travis County WCID 18. The West Travis County PUA was also impacted, covering much of the Bee Cave area. The problem for Westlake resi- dents began due to power outages at two of the pump stations, said Carla Orts, the general manager for Travis County WCID No. 10 in Westlake, in an email to Community Impact . “When a pump station loses power, the pumps are no longer able to pump and push water through the system,” Orts said. “Without the con- tinuous pumping, the water district must rely on water reserves during the power interruption.” Orts said the water reserves began falling after 43 hours of no power. While Austin Energy has the facil- ity earmarked as critical to local infrastructure, many other similarly important facilities were without

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could pay with cash or take what they need now and pay later, Wise said. Momin was one of the thousands of Austinites who lost power due to the winter storm during the rst week of February. Momin told Com- munity Impact he lost money and product after being without power for days; he estimated he lost hun- dreds of dollars in spoiled meat alone. However, he said monetary loss was not his main concern. “I want to make an impact; I’m not worried about the money,” he said. “People were hurting; people were freezing; I had to do something to help.” Weathering the storm Temperatures dropped below freezing Jan. 30 and hovered near 32 degrees until Feb. 3, followed by rain the next few days, according to National Weather Service data. More than half an inch of ice is con- sidered signicant for any part of the county, said Mack Morris, a National Weather Service meteorologist in the Austin/San Antonio oce. AE General Manager Jackie Sargent called the storm a historic extreme. More than 30% of AE customers lost power, largely due to debris on power lines. Soon after outages began, Sargent and other AE ocials began elding questions about vegetation manage- ment—or the utility’s responsibility to trim trees around power lines. In May 2019, Austin Council increased tree trimming around power lines to 8 feet for fast-grow- ing trees and 4 feet for slow-grow- ing trees. At the time, AE ocials warned the trees were overgrown in

Austin Energy

Pedernales Electric Cooperative

Overlapping coverage

County line

281 PEC peak 11,741 Travis County members experienced outages Feb. 2

183

195

Williamson County

130 TOLL

183

45 TOLL

Travis County

290

281

290

PEC peak 8,790

Hays County

304 AE peak 173,879 customers experienced outages Feb. 1

Hays County members experienced outages Feb. 2

130

MAP NOT TO SCALE

SOURCES: AUSTIN ENERGY, PEDERNALES ELECTRIC COOPERATIVECOMMUNITY IMPACT

HOW THE CITY WENT DARK

Austin Energy experienced more than 350,000 outages from Jan. 31-Feb. 7, largely due to ice on the lines. An outage lasts 5 minutes or longer for one customer. Other utilities, such as Pedernales Electric Cooperative, experienced similar conditions.

Half an inch of ice can add 500 pounds to an electrical wire.

Substation

KEY

Break or short circuit in the line

Crews in eld Homes

Underground transformer Overhead transformer

SOURCE: AUSTIN ENERGYCOMMUNITY IMPACT

COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM