KPUB Fares Well Through Storm, Restores Power for Neighbors

KPUB lineman apprentice, Nathaniel Crabtree, restoring power for CTEC customers in the Tierra Linda area

 

February 3, 2023—The Kerrville Public Utility Board (KPUB) began work early on to ensure we were as prepared as possible for extreme weather impacts during Winter Storm Mara forecasted in the Hill County Region. KPUB customers were minimally impacted during this event. Throughout the duration of the week, a total of just 95 KPUB customers experienced a power outage—less than 0.5% of our customers. The longest outage was an hour and 25 minutes and the shortest was 9 minutes.

“KPUB was prepared and ready to respond to any significant storm impacts, but fortunate that our service territory ended up faring well,” said KPUB General Manager & CEO, Mike Wittler. “We’re currently helping restore power for our neighboring utility, CTEC, whose service territory did have storm damages. We anticipate continuing to provide mutual aid for their customers as long as help is needed.”

“Providing mutual aid during major events allows our personnel to learn, adapt and be better prepared for the future. It’s also part of being a good neighbor. Continuous improvement and lending a helping hand to our neighbors in need are integral parts of our company’s culture,” said Wittler.

Below is an outage report from the storm event from January 30-February 2, 2023.

Monday, January 30, 2023:

# of customers out: Time out:   Time restored:   Area: Outage cause:
1 8:48 a.m. 9:19 a.m. Westminster Construction
1 10:55 a.m. 12:11 p.m. Hwy 39/Hunt Equipment overload
1 1:15 p.m. 1:23 p.m. Harper Rd/I-10 Decay/age of material/equipment
4 6:46 p.m. 7:26 p.m. Thunder Rd Equipment overload

Tuesday, January 31, 2023:

No outages to report in KPUB service area

Wednesday, February 1, 2023:

# of customers out: Time out:   Time restored:   Area: Outage cause:
4 3:10 p.m. 3:20 p.m. McAllen Dr. Equipment fault/failure
5 4:28 p.m. 5:53 p.m. Willow & Laurel Way Equipment fault/failure
2 6:48 p.m. 7:45 p.m. McAllen/Cedar Cause unknown

Thursday, February 2, 2023:

# of customers out: Time out:   Time restored:   Area: Outage cause:
76 11:27 a.m. 12:39 p.m. Kerrville South Equipment fault/failure
1 2:42 p.m. 2:51 p.m. Hwy 16/I-10

Equipment fault/failure

 

Four construction crews comprised of 14 line workers began mutual aid on Thursday, February 2, 2023, to restore power to Central Texas Electric Cooperative (CTEC) customers in the Tierra Linda Ranch, Wilderness Community, Whiskey Canyon Ranch and Saddlewood Subdivision of Kerr County.

Mutual aid is neighbors helping neighbors in need, whether those neighbors are next door or thousands of miles away. More than 1,100 public power and rural cooperative utilities belong to the national public power mutual aid network. These utilities sign up to give and receive help for power restoration after a disaster.

KPUB is part of this network, and we’ve been on the receiving end once during our company’s history after the Memorial Day storms in May 2020. CTEC helped us restore power to our community after this storm and three other utilities: the City of Seguin Utilities, City of Boerne Utilities and the City of Fredericksburg. KPUB was able to pay it forward and help CTEC restore power during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 and now again during this event. This marks the 10th time that KPUB has provided mutual aid to another utility company to help restore power during a major event.

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linemen restoring power for CTEC customers in the Whiskey Canyon Ranch area. KPUB bucket, Zach Guinn. L to R, Josh Whitworth, Kenneth Becker & Justin Martinez.

 

To download a copy of this press release, click here.