Sharing the Brunt

Cooperation makes quick work of sprawling winter storm

Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of a nasty winter storm, but sometimes it helps to be in the bull’s-eye. That was the case Jan. 10, when Texas’ first big winter storm of the season brought freezing temperatures and wintry precipitation to much of North and Northeast Texas, causing spot outages and road hazards for several electric cooperatives.

But a perfect storm of just-freezing temperatures and plenty of rain took direct aim at Bowie-Cass EC. Neighboring co-ops were mostly spared, allowing extra hands to be swiftly dispatched.

“Fortunately for them, it only hit us—so we could get people over here pretty quickly,” said Mark Boyd, BCEC general manager. “We were corresponding well before daylight, and they were sending us help. I can’t say enough for our sister co-ops that always come to our aid.”

Boyd said outages peaked at more than 14,000 meters—about a third of the co-op’s total—as thick ice weighed down trees and branches, bringing down lines and resulting in some 375 outages scattered across the co-op’s six counties.A few hundred meters at nearby Lamar EC also were briefly affected, and Southwest Arkansas EC tallied 5,000 affected meters. Crews from seven East Texas co-ops—Cherokee County, Deep East Texas, Houston County, Jasper-Newton, Rusk County, Trinity Valley and Upshur Rural ECs—quickly set a course for BCEC.

Weather forecasts had given Boyd and his employees a head start on preparations.

“We were as ready as we possibly could be with what we knew was coming,” he said. “We’ve got people, we’ve got materials, we’ve got fuel—we’ve got all the things that we think we need, and then you just got to wait and see what actually happens.”

That preparation and rapid show of Cooperation Among Cooperatives made quick work of restoration despite the isolated and scattered nature of the outages. Nearly half of BCEC’s meters were back on within a day, and the system was whole by the evening of the third day.

“Our folks and those who came to help us did a stellar job,” Boyd said. “Everyone was prepared, everyone executed well, we did it safely—most importantly—and we exceeded our expectations as far as getting it back on. I really thought some things would lapse into Monday, but we were able to get it done on Sunday.”