Texas co-ops working to restore power in the wake of Hurricane Harvey

As Hurricane Harvey continues to affect a large area of the Texas Gulf region, a number of electric cooperative crews have been actively assessing the storm’s damage and rebuilding destroyed systems in
order to restore power to area residents.

The Sinton, Texas-based San Patricio Electric Cooperative lost service to approximately 8,000 of its 11,000 meters. However, it was able to restore service to approximately 4,000 meters soon after its transmission provider re-energized a number of substations in the area.

Ronald D. Hughes, CEO and general manager of the cooperative, said that restoration in the Rockport-Aransas Pass area would take up to two weeks or longer to get equipment in there and change out
everything they needed to replace.

While electric outages to San Patricio were relatively modest, the Victoria Electric Cooperative saw a much larger disruption with more than 23,000 meters losing service. The co-op has since restored power to approximately 1,000 meters and has called for more than 160 linemen from nearby co-ops to help restore power.

“Yesterday was assessment and that’s continuing today, but today we are starting to rebuild and restore our system slowly,” Nina Campos, human resources and communications manager at Victoria, said. “This was a very different storm that I don’t think anyone could have prepared for. We’ve had an unbelievable amount of rain and extremely damaging winds. Several areas of our service territory are flooded or flooding now.”

Outages from nearby cooperatives ranged from approximately 7,000 for the Bastrop, Texas-based Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative to more than 15,000 for the Gonzales, Texas-based Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative.

“We’ve got crews in the field and we’re in contact with public safety and highway department personnel who will let us know when the water has receded,” Will Holford, spokesman for Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative, said. “That’s when we can get in and assess damage, make repairs and get everybody’s power back on.”

By midday on Aug. 27, Guadalupe Valley reported that its outages were down to approximately 7,500. The following day, the outages were down to approximately 2,600.

Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) noted that more outages were likely to occur due to flooding and other storm-related issues.