12 years, Aqua has used a generator due to an emergency only five times. This is remarkable when you consider Aqua has weathered five declared national emergencies during that time.” While systems struggled to restore service or keep their systems running, there was also the challenge of communicating with their communities, including information about outages, conservation tips, and boil water notices. Many turned to their websites and social media outlets to get information out to their customers fast. “We blew up our social media,” said Thompson at College Mound SUD. “We posted pictures of how to check your meter, turn off your water, what you can look for to identify a leak — anything we could think of.” Mustang SUD also relied heavily on social media, and even shot videos during the crisis to post to Facebook. Trophy Club MUD 1 used social media and also leaned on its relationship with the Town of Trophy Club to coordinate critical efforts through the town’s resident alert system, which sent texts, phone calls and emails to their nearly 6,000 subscribers. Aqua WSC also used a combination of social media and their emergency alert system to keep customers up to speed. Systems quickly learned that most of their residents were relying on their posts to stay informed. Leadership in the water industry see the crisis as coming down to an energy failure which caused the cascading problems at the water systems. “Had it not been for the direct communication with our electrical provider, we would have been in the same boat as our neighboring systems,” said Thompson, who successfully was able to get College Mound SUD off rolling blackouts after two cycles. As a result, they did not lose service or have to issue a boil water notice to their customers during the storm. Across the state, other systems were not so lucky. Brian Macmanus at East Rio Hondo WSC called his regional emergency management coordinator to attempt to get their pump station back online. After his call, their local electric coop was able to get part of their system back online, but their main electric provider was harder to coordinate with. “The energy company said they didn’t have any control over who they turned off. They didn’t seem to have any idea where the key facilities were,” said Macmanus. 26
Quench — 2021 - Issue 2
With only one station online, East Rio Hondo WSC had to shut off their customers to fill their tank and come up with a plan to bring the system back up in sections. They worked tirelessly to get everyone back online by Thursday evening. At Aqua WSC, the rolling blackouts the system was experiencing was putting strain on their other systems as well, including their electronic control systems. With power only coming on between 1020 minutes at a time, there wasn’t enough time to complete system checks during those windows. “The effect of the rolling blackouts on water systems was to essentially deny them of electricity for two and a half days because of the short duration of power,” said McMurry. He also pointed out that the starting and stopping of pumps can be highly damaging to the pumps and the water lines they feed. “If the winter storms taught us anything, it’s that there needs to be better communication between the power providers and the water utilities, which should be listed as critical infrastructure to support,” said Lara Zent, Executive Director and General Counsel of Texas Rural Water Association. Most of the state had their electricity restored by Friday, February 19, but water problems lingered for days after while systems continued to fight hard for recovery. With power restored, staff continued to work overtime to get water treated, tanks filled, and service restored. System personnel drove miles and miles of line looking for breaks and continued to spotcheck in the week following. Following the disastrous emergency event, systems are looking inward and evaluating what changes they can make to ensure they are prepared for future extreme winter conditions. In addition to having better communication with their power providers, intense winterization procedures, stockpiling fuel, purchasing non-cellular communication devices, and relocating critical system components indoors are just a few resiliency measures being discussed at water systems across the state. Hopefully, a storm like Uri truly is a “once in a generation” event, as it has been described in the news. However, with a focus on resiliency and emergency preparedness, when it does happen again, our Texas water systems will be ready.
