Southwest Austin Dripping Springs Edition | February 2023

LOSING POWER When Winter Storm Mara blew through Texas on Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 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 customers were aected at the peak of outages for each service area.

with a hurricane or tornado. 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 approved widening the tree trim- ming around power lines to 8 feet for fast-growing trees and 4 feet for slow-growing trees. At the time, AE ocials warned the trees were over- grown in many areas. AE has maintained better vegeta- tion management would not have made a huge dierence due to the severity of the storm. Michael Webber, a professor of mechanical engineering at The Uni- versity of Texas and a former AE com- missioner, said he believes overall the city-owned utility performed rela- tively 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. After the action On Feb. 2, Sargent estimated all out- ages would be xed by Feb. 3 before announcing there was no timeline for repairs just hours later. On Feb.

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and thousands of Pedernales Elec- tric Cooperative members. The icy conditions also led to hundreds of car crashes in Central Texas and a boil-water notice in western Travis County. "This storm is ungodly," said Elton Richards, Austin Energy vice presi- dent of eld operations. "I've never seen it in my life ... I worked in the northern part of Illinois, never saw this level of devastation." Frustrations from community and City Council members over AE’s communications, such as promising then walking back a timeline for total power restoration, and Austin’s storm response have built up. On Feb. 15, City Council red City Manager Spen- cer Cronk in part for his response to the storm. Weathering the storm Temperatures dropped below freezing Jan. 30 and hovered near 32 degrees until Feb. 3, according to National Weather Service data, and it rained over the next few days. More than half an inch of ice is con- sidered signicant for any part of the county, said Mack Morris, an Austin/ San Antonio NWS meteorologist. AE General Manager Jackie Sargent called the storm a “historic extreme.” Over 30% of AE customers lost power, largely due to debris on power lines. The number of customers refers to a single meter. A customer represents 2.5 people on average, per industry standards. A PEC representative said the majority of the outages were caused by ice accumulation on lines and damages from falling sheets of ice. PEC ocials said Winter Storm Mara caused damage similar to what is seen

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

183

SOURCES: AUSTIN ENERGY, PEDERNALES ELECTRIC COOPERATIVECOMMUNITY IMPACT

195

HOW THE CITY WENT DARK

During Winter Storm Mara, ice and debris accumulated on power lines and knocked over poles. This led to more than 373,000 power outages. While Austin abides by a trim trimming protocol around power lines, it was behind on some vegetation management. The ice was so signicant it aected trees outside of the city’s management zone.

More than 0.5 inches of ice is considered signicant, according to the National ICE BUILD UP

281

183

Travis

290

130 TOLL

290

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

Substation

Weather Service.

Hays

Ice accumulation

KEY

304

0.75 in. 0.5 in.

Underground transformer

Accumulated ice

130

SOURCE: AUSTIN ENERGY COMMUNITY IMPACT

Fallen tree or limbs

Overhead transformer

Homes

SOURCE: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM