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Report Details ‘Cascading Disaster’ of Response and Failures

When the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state's grid operator, required the utility to cut power across San Antonio, massive pumps used to push water throughout the city shut down.

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The city of San Antonio and its water and energy utilities failed to share enough information during February's winter storm, among themselves or with the public.

That worsened an already bad situation, with hundreds of thousands of San Antonians enduring freezing temperatures without power or water for long periods.

A 46-page report on how the three organizations responded to the storm, submitted to the City Council on Thursday, detailed their shortcomings. It also called on them to beef up their communication plans as they prepare for the next disaster.

After its investigation, the Emergency Preparedness Committee, appointed in March by Mayor Ron Nirenberg, placed much of the blame for the long power outages on state officials and the Texas power grid operator. But the panel also found plenty of fault with the city, CPS Energy and the San Antonio Water System.

"What we saw in February wasn't just a winter storm. It's what we call a cascading disaster. That is, we had one major disruption — in this case, weather — that resulted in disruptions to other infrastructure," said District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval, a committee member. "As changing climate continues to promise more extreme weather ... our risk for these types of disasters increases."

At the city's joint emergency operations center, which is responsible for coordinating city agencies' responses during a crisis, CPS sent a representative to meetings during the storm. But CPS alone handled "decision-making regarding power outages," which "did not occur in coordination with the EOC," according to the report.

And CPS didn't tell the emergency operations center which circuits around the city — each of which delivers electricity to thousands of households — would lose power. That made it nearly impossible for the city to inform residents ahead of the outages and determine where to open warming centers for people who'd lost electricity.

"This was a horrific experience for many of our citizens all across San Antonio," CPS CEO Paula Gold-Williams said. "It has hurt many people, and we apologize for any contribution that CPS had towards that. The buck stops with me. I am the CEO, and I'm responsible and accountable."

When the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state's grid operator, required the utility to cut power across San Antonio, massive pumps used to push water throughout the city shut down. SAWS directed residents to boil their tap water — even though many did not have electricity to boil water.

Emergency officials were blindsided when SAWS leaders issued the boil water notice as water outages spread throughout the city. SAWS didn't have anyone at the emergency operations center, according to the report.

Buying generators to back up each of SAWS' water-pumping stations in case of future widespread power outages is off the table for now. Outfitting each station with a generator would be too costly, given how rarely they would be needed, according to the report. One estimate pegged the cost at $200 million.

But CPS and SAWS could team up to back up at least the water utility's most crucial stations, SAWS CEO Robert Puente said.

The Emergency Preparedness Committee, made up of four City Council members and three San Antonio residents, also called on CPS to re-evaluate how it buys and stores natural gas.

During the storm, the utility bought gas on the spot market to fuel its power plants and heat customers' homes. But the cold weather froze natural gas facilities around the state at the same time that CPS and other utilities were competing for the fuel. The rising demand for gas and diminished supply sent prices skyrocketing.

CPS spent about $685 million for natural gas the week of Feb. 15. CPS typically spends about that much on fuel in one year.

The report also recommended changing CPS' strategy for conducting rolling power outages throughout the city. During the freeze, a map provided by CPS shows that parts of the city — including the North Side — experienced significantly longer blackouts than others.

Though outages were spread throughout San Antonio, council members from lower-income districts contended that long-standing inequities — including less home insulation and access to the internet and grocery stores — worsened the freeze's impact.

"We have to be real that, yes, everyone's pain is real, but the impact is not the same," said District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who represents the East Side.

District 8 Councilman Manny Peláez, who represents the Northwest Side, vehemently rejected McKee-Rodriguez's reading of the crisis.

"This was the great equalizer," Peláez said. "Every single San Antonian for one week was vulnerable."

The report also said CPS and other Texas utilities should pressure state lawmakers in 2023 to connect the Texas power grid to the electric grids west and east of Texas, which serve the rest of the U.S.

CPS should also support legislation preventing the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT from manually setting the price of wholesale power on the statewide market, the report said. A decision by regulators to set power prices at the maximum rate for 32 hours longer than necessary during the storm cost CPS and other utilities billions of dollars.

Several of CPS' power plants were mostly or completely out of commission at times during the storm, according to the report. Some of the plant failures were caused by a lack of fuel.

But the biggest cause of plant shutdowns was mechanical failures caused by the weather.

Gold-Williams has said CPS weatherized all its power plants ahead of the storm. Still, "the extensive weatherization actions taken were insufficient to account for either the demand experienced during the storm or the damage the storm would have on vulnerable plant equipment," the report said.

That prompted CPS to commit more capital to weatherization, Gold-Williams said. The projects could include beefing up plants' insulation and adding more space heaters.

As far as municipal operations, budget writers have pinpointed $5 million in the city's upcoming annual budget to beef up the city's preparedness for future weather disasters. That money would pay for upgrading backup generators at fire and police stations, some of which lost power during the storm.

It's possible the city could ask San Antonio voters to approve the sale of bonds to shore up funds to pay for generators and other emergency measures.

City and utility officials don't have a firm timeline on implementing the report's nearly 60 recommendations.

City and utility staffers will "assess and analyze" the recommendations, City Manager Erik Walsh told council members in a memo Thursday morning.

"We've now had the report released publicly," Nirenberg said after the meeting. "So we can begin the process of holding ourselves (accountable) and having the public scrutinize the implementation process."

Some aren't content to wait. District 4 Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia made a formal proposal — backed by four other council members — to put together a council committee to oversee the utilities and how they put the recommendations into effect, so the report "doesn't just sit on a shelf."

The committee would audit the utilities' and the city's emergency preparedness annually.

Officials acknowledged the city and utilities failed in their response to the storm — and that it'll take time to regain public trust.

"I want our customers to take us for granted," Puente said. "I don't want them to think twice when they turn a faucet whether water is going to come out."

diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net

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