‘They’re Your People’

Co-op workers rush to help North Plains EC members after devastating wildfire

Jennifer Roberts is the chief financial officer at North Plains EC, where she has worked for 17 years.

But first thing March 1, she dropped off a dozen trash bags of lineworkers’ dirty laundry at the only capable laundromat in Perryton. She hand delivered lunches to workers in sandy river bottoms. She called just about every restaurant in the northeastern corner of the Panhandle, trying to figure out who she could pay to make lunches for more than 100 lineworkers on Sunday.

“Titles don’t mean a damn when you’re in the middle of a restoration,” she said. “They really don’t. You find a need and you fill it. There’s nobody above anybody; everybody’s just trying to help.”

Seven years after a one-two punch of ice and fire destroyed more than 3,000 of North Plains EC’s power poles, wreaking nearly $15 million in damage on the distribution system, the largest wildfire in Texas history raged through the heart of the co-op’s system in late February.

Numbers can’t fully convey the depth of the toll this time.

“We deliver in storm conditions a lot—not a big deal,” Roberts said. “This one—when you’re driving down the road and you’ve got meals for the guys and you see all these people standing around the pads of their homes where there’s nothing left—it is heart-wrenching to see what our members are going through. And you know, they’re your people.

“You’ve seen them at annual meetings; you’ve been there when they’ve come in the door; you’ve celebrated with them; you’ve been there to connect their new house or their new barn; or see their new venture start up; and so now you go out there, and it’s just nothing left.”

Two people died; more than four dozen homes burned down, including those of three North Plains EC employees; and the co-op had to bring in more than 100 outside lineworkers—from sister cooperatives and contractors—to replace nearly 600 poles impacting 700 miles of remote power lines—after the fast-moving Smokehouse Creek wildfire burned more than 1 million acres in Texas and Oklahoma.

For North Plains EC, the numbers and damage pale in comparison to 2017, but the pain is deeper this time.

“This fire impacted our members personally probably greater than any event that has occurred,” said Randy Mahannah, the co-op’s general manager.

He has led North Plains EC through more than its share of natural disasters in an area of the Panhandle where conditions can change quickly, 40 mph winds aren’t uncommon and 2-foot-tall grasses grow unchecked.

“We have five counties that are almost all grass,” Mahannah said. “There are no fire breaks. There are no firewalls. There is no farmland. There’s nothing to stop a fire if it starts moving.”

Co-op personnel monitor the police radios when the weather or the fire risk is particularly bad. So they were aware when a wildfire was reported north of Stinnett, just west of the co-op’s service area, Feb. 26.

“The winds weren’t severe then; they were bad, but they weren’t extremely bad,” Mahannah said. “You sit there and you’re hopeful that something changes the weatherman’s prediction.”

By the next morning, one of the co-op’s board members told Mahannah that he was watching the fire line from his property in Roberts County, one county to the east. By that evening, the wildfire had burned up his rangeland and was already moving through Hemphill County and lapping at the co-op’s actual door. The fire had reached NPEC’s warehouse and yard in Canadian, where it destroyed the co-op’s entire reserve of 500–600 poles.

When Mahannah found out: “I said something worse than dern,” he said. “Honestly, the thought was, thank goodness it was only the poles.” The building and surrounding neighborhood survived, along with most of the community of Canadian, where evacuations were ordered.

By then, hope in the form of co-op lineworkers was already in sight. In a testament to the power of Cooperation Among Cooperatives, one of the co-op principles, bucket truck caravans of workers from Bailey County, Big Country, Deaf Smith, Greenbelt, Lamb County, Lighthouse, Lyntegar and Swisher ECs and Oklahoma-based Tri-County EC made their way to Perryton, where NPEC is based, and Canadian, in the middle of some of the worst damage. They joined North Plains EC’s own crews and contract workers in getting the lights back on as quickly and safely as they could.

“The mutual aid agreement that we have with all the other co-ops in the state of Texas is unbelievably helpful,” Mahannah said. “We have the opportunity to tap co-op neighbors that use the same structures, the same construction that we do. The people who show up are outstanding. They know what their job is, and they do it well.”

The fire had directly affected 1,700 NPEC meters, but a transmission line that was allowed to trip offline out of an abundance of caution temporarily affected another 1,300 meters. The small army of workers put in 14-plus-hour days in unfamiliar, rugged and sandy terrain.

“When we pulled into town, there were poles still on fire,” said Wade McPherson, a foreman from Deaf Smith EC who traveled to North Plains EC’s territory with co-worker Andrew Ramirez and six other linemen for six straight days of changing out poles.“It almost looked like a war zone at the co-op,” said Ramirez, who explained how at one point the DSEC crew happened upon a ranch in the Canadian River basin where a barn was on fire. “All of us just grabbed water hoses, and we attached them together and got in there and put out the fire.”

For Matt Wynn, one of six lineworkers from neighboring Greenbelt EC who responded to the mutual aid request, those face-to-face moments with grateful members are the most gratifying.

“People don’t even know who you are, and they’re just thankful everywhere you go,” Wynn said. “You get to see the actual rewards of what you do.”

Within 10 days, all power that could be restored was. Mahannah credits the efforts of his hardened employees and those workers who rushed to assist them.

“They took care of the membership in a way that I’m awfully proud of,” he said. “I hate that it was up to 10 days before service was restored for some of our members, but under the circumstances, I think it’s still remarkable that they were able to get it done. They worked tirelessly, and there were no complaints from anyone.”

For the employees who lost homes, including one who has four young boys, donations poured in from the co-op community.

“Our co-op neighbors reached out to all three of them with monetary donations as well as clothes and different items,” Mahannah said. “That’s really the wonderful thing about being a co-op. There’s a closeness, a brotherhood, a sisterhood—whatever you want to call it—there’s a real closeness between co-ops, and whenever one co-op is hurting, all the rest of them rally around that co-op.”

Mahannah said the co-op estimates the damage at $2 million but that the work isn't over yet—poles in the fire zone will have to be reinspected over the coming weeks and months. “We’ve been changing poles, we’ve been riding line for years to strengthen and create more reliability on the system and try to protect against the fact that we’re in an area where any small fire can create a large problem,” he said.