The ice storm of 2023 may be receding from the forefront of people’s minds, but city and utility officials are taking time to reflect upon what happened, as well as their own emergency preparedness response.
Fire Chief Daniel Baum, Taylor’s Emergency Operations Coordinator, said in a recent interview that compared to Winter Storm Uri in 2021, the city fared better and was more prepared, though there were still severe impacts to businesses and residents.
“The ice was the issue here,” Baum said.
“If you compare it to 2021, it was temperatures near zero, so temperatures were 30-40 degrees warmer here, so that certainly helped out a lot. Also, we had eight inches of snow, which we didn’t have this time.”
Nevertheless, Taylor and the surrounding areas were hit hard.
During the storm’s peak, almost 8,000 customers in our zip code were without power, and some outages lasted from Jan. 31 until Feb.
6.
“We had more widespread power outages this time around, and that’s just because of the ice accumulation, so either ice causing tree branches to fall on power lines or taking down power lines without trees, Baum said.
Oncor Electrical Delivery spokeswoman Kerri Dunn said the extensive and continuous outages were due to the nature of the storm.
“It was really just the multiple bands of weather,” Dunn said.
“We didn’t have one outage event. A lot of times when you have a severe spring storm, the weather comes through, and you have got one round of getting hit by those wind or trees etc., and then the weather is gone, and we can just do restoration and completely focus on that, but with this one, we had multiple rounds of freezing rain, which meant multiple rounds of icing and multiple rounds of new outages.”
Unlike Uri, this time around, due to additional generators the city purchased after the 2021 storm, there was no loss of city utilities.
“Fortunately, water and wastewater remained unaffected,” Baum said. “Some of the improvements we made after the last storm as far as backup generators and all that certainly paid off, and we still have more generators coming to the city that we haven’t received yet due to long lead times on items.
The city facilities have been better equipped and will be even better equipped moving forward.”
Still, Baum said during this year’s storm, the city was inundated with calls to report downed power lines and trees.
“The fire department ran over 250 calls which is about a month’s worth of calls that we compressed down to three days,” he said.
To respond to the storm, city personnel have worked overtime clearing debris from the roads, Baum said.
“Ongoing debris management after the fact is the city’s biggest priority right now,” Baum said.
The city’s Public Works Director Jim Gray, said in earlier interview that curbside branch collection is expected to take three to four weeks.
In addition, the city is offering drop off service, free of charge.
“If they to move (the branches) themselves, they can take them to the Welch Street Facility at 1200 Welch St,” Gray said. “But no leaves, bags, or trash. Branches only.”
