Winter Storm Uri Makes Lasting Impact on Texas Water Utilities

By Allison Kaminsky, Deputy Executive Director, Texas Rural Water Association

In February, record-setting Winter Storm Uri brought snow, ice and piercing-cold temperatures to Texas, immobilizing the state’s power grid and triggering intermittent and sustained outages statewide. This unprecedented event hit water utilities hard, causing system instability or failure for many statewide. According to news reports, there were more than 4.5 million Texans who reported power outages across the state and more than 15 million were issued boil water notices at the peak of the storm. By the time the storm had ended, nearly 2,000 public water systems across Texas reported some level of disrupted operations.

Water utility personnel began working around the clock for what would be a week of crisis after crisis compounded by freezing temperatures, lack of power, unsafe road conditions, hindered communication, restricted access to supplies, exhausted personnel, and strained water supply.

It all started the afternoon of Sunday, February 14, for College Mound SUD, when they realized they had a problem with their transducer freezing as temperatures plummeted.

“We had our guys out working on [the transducer] and they had to basically rewire everything, so it was more insulated and completely out of the elements. And that’s when the power went off for the first time,” said Shirley Thompson, General Manager of the system.

By Sunday evening, systems across the state were dealing with similar situations. Some systems were put on rolling blackouts while others lost power all together.

Unfortunately, while most systems had some form of backup power supply on hand, some generators were not able to start in the cold and others had mechanical issues. In some instances, portable generators worked, but the hazardous conditions made it dangerous and difficult to transport them to the locations that needed them. Before the sun rose on Monday, February 15, many systems’ backup

Starting Sunday evening, water system personnel worked around the clock to face the challenges brought on by Winter Storm Uri.

power generators were already failing as the Texas power grid faced its worst crisis in decades. Even as workers battled to reset generators and keep the electricity on at their critical locations, other problems began to arise.

Because of the increased demand and disrupted supply chain, fuel for the generators quickly became scarce.

“A 250KW generator requires 200 gallons of diesel a day, larger generators even more. During this crisis, diesel supply became a serious issue for just maintaining Aqua WSC’s four generators,” said Dave McMurry, general manager of the system.

Even at systems with reserves on hand, fueling was becoming an issue when it became clear that the storm conditions were not letting up.

“Fuel was definitely an issue,” said Brian Macmanus, general manger of East Rio Hondo WSC.

“We have a stored fuel supply, but we came close to running out before the week was up. In the future, we plan to build up a better reserve supply.”

When it comes to fuel, Mustang SUD was prepared with two 600-gallon diesel tanks that were stocked up ahead of time. Their county emergency coordinator offered to supplement their supply if they ran out.

“It was a challenge, but we ended up having enough,” said Boyd. The system was also prepared with anti-gel to keep their fuel from gelling up in subfreezing temperatures. Others were not as prepared, and their diesel supply became unusable.

The freezing weather brought other issues — water treatment chemicals froze, gauges broke, cell towers and phone lines went down, and large supply lines from water sources began to freeze for the first time ever. It was a domino effect that kept system personnel working extended shifts, sleeping at their stations, and coming up with creative solutions to each problem that arose.

“My field manager used his southern ingenuity to make it work. He built onsite heat lamps from light bulbs and pieces of lamps from the office, then put a box around them to keep them out of the weather,” said Thompson at College Mound SUD. “Thinking outside of the box is so critical in a situation like this.”

Historic high demand was another significant factor that taxed many water systems. When the storm hit the Rio Grande Valley Sunday evening, the semi-tropical region was unprepared for the freezing temperatures and gusting wind. East Rio Hondo WSC’s customers started running their faucets to protect their unwinterized pipes from freezing — some running at full blast. This problem was compounded once line breaks started happening. The result was a distribution flow more than double what they were prepared for. One of their water sources in Harlingen shut them and neighboring Military Highway WSC off because they had already exceeded their contract amount.

Up north in Aubrey, Texas, Mustang SUD was facing similar supply issues. Between dripping faucets, line breaks, and other use, the system was producing more water than even at their highest summer demand.

“A combination of intended and unintended use of water increased demand exponentially,” said Chris Boyd, general manager of the system.

Freezing temperatures caused a domino effect of issues that hindered or completely halted water system operations state-wide.

“Typically, we’ll see usage peaks in the morning and the evening, but the rest of the day it’s even; in this instance, the usage spiked and stayed up. Everything was constantly running, placing an incredible amount of demand on the system.”

The system had over 1,000 calls to shut off water at the meter because of line breaks. Livestock watering devices were breaking and not found until days later. The systems’ regional wholesale provider could not send enough water to keep up with the demand, causing the system to lose pressure to the high-density areas.

In Central Texas, Aqua WSC saw customer demand quickly deplete all their elevated storage and pipelines. Because the system was placed on rolling blackouts, and even with backup generators on hand, the pumps were unable to push enough water into their elevated storage to satisfy the demand.

“In a total system power failure, Aqua would require 20 or more generators just to maintain minimum operations and still many in the system would not have water,” said Dave McMurry, general manager of the system. “Historically, in the past