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BEC Hurricane Rita Power Restoration Page What's below: Monday, Oct. 10 - The BEC Hurricane Rita Restoration team returned to the Hill Country on Friday, Oct. 7. The returning crew included: Mike Satsky , Bandera (he replaced Jim Boyd, Leakey, who returned early due to a death in his family); Mark Jebbia, Bandera; Clint Brown, Bandera; Mark Busby, Comfort; and Robert Rodriguez, Bandera. Mark Busby was the foreman for the crew. The BEC crew were among the first co-op crews into the Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative service area. When the crew went to work for DETEC the bulk of the co-op's 38,000 members were out of power. The BEC crew helped restore power in the Nacogdoches area. It was common for the group to work 15+ hours a day. The BEC crew worked long hours in the DETEC area for eleven days before returning home for some much needed rest. "We had members coming up to us offering us food and drinks. They were so happy to see us," said Busby. "It made us feel good to know how grateful the local folks were to have us there." Tuesday, Oct. 4 - Not only do the folks in the area where BEC is working appreciate our efforts, but so do our members here. Jayne Rambin, Bandera Member Accounts Department Representative, took a call from a BEC member this morning who was trying to find out if there was anything we could do to help her Mom get power restored. Her Mom lives in Etoile a town of about 350 in east Texas, and she is served by Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative. Jane told her we had a crew working there and Mrs. Dudley was floored. Jane read to her over the phone yesterday's update. "She was thrilled that her cooperative (BEC) was helping her Mom's Co-op get power flowing." She was also pleased to hear we had news about power restoration in the area. As the article says below the bulk of members in the Nacogdoches area where BEC crews have been working now have power. But, in some areas there are still outages. The Daily Sentinel, Tuesday, October 04, 2005, "Larry Warren, Deep East Texas Electric Co-op manager, said his crews hoped to have power restored to everyone in Nacogdoches County by the end of the day on Monday. 'We're 95 to 98 percent, right now,' Warren said early Monday. 'There are about 100 people in Nacogdoches County we're hoping to get to Monday.' Warren said crews are working to finish repairs in Nacogdoches County in order to move into Sabine, Newton and San Augustine counties, where power is only 40-percent complete. Warren encouraged anyone without electricity to call the automated outage system twice a day, morning and evening, to report the problem." Monday, Oct. 3, 2005 - The BEC Hurricane Rita restoration crew continues to report good progress in getting Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative (DETEC) member's back in power. In a new development late Sunday, BEC is sending Mike Satsky first thing Monday morning to replace Jim Boyd. Jim received tragic news. His uncle, who was like a brother to him, pasted away suddenly. Jim is returning to attend his funeral and deal with the loss. The BEC crew is still working long days. It currently looks like they may be returning in the latter part of the week.
Below is an update that was posted on the DETEC web site: Deep East Texas continues working around the clock with approximately 350 outside crews restoring power after the most devastating storm to ever hit its' service area. Immediately after Hurricane Rita hit East Texas, 97% of our members were without service due to the raging hurricane force winds. Residents were left without lights, water, and communication and were faced with a severe shortage of gasoline. We experienced over-population in our housing and on our highways with many of our southern neighbors seeking refuge from the storm. Now seven days later, Deep East is proud to have restored approximately 29,000 services leaving only 25% of our membership without power according to B.P. Steptoe, Director of Operations. With assistance from the Texas Forest Service and many other contract crews DETEC is able to put construction crews on most major lines speeding restoration. In an emergency agreement with TXU, we were able to clear and restore a line that had been retired many years ago and brought it back into service. This was instrumental in energizing the Broaddus and Etoile substations on Saturday and hopefully will send some power into the Jasper-Newton Electric Cooperative system. The only substation not up at this time serves primarily Newton county which took a direct hit from Hurricane Rita and borders the Entergy system. Deep East is working with county judges, FEMA, Texas Forest Service, the Governor's office, our engineers and consultants throughout Texas. Sunday morning Larry Warren, General Manager of DETEC and Jim Whitton, Right-of-Way supervisor met in Sabine County with County Judge Jack Leath, the county commissioners, Keith Smith of the DPS Highway Patrol, and Todd Richards of Incident Management Team of the US Forest Service to discuss critical situations in that county. Friday, September 30, 2005 - We heard from the BEC Hurricane Rita restoration team who have been working in the Nacogdoches area. They say they have made good progress and were able to get a main feeder going for Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative's members. They have been putting in 15 hour work days. They mentioned that they have had some trouble getting poles the last couple of days. The crew expects they will get to come back to the Hill Country late next week if progress continues at the pace they have seen this week. The article below is from the internet edition of The Daily Sentinel today. It mentions that DETEC still has 50 percent of its meters without power, but that things are improving.
DETEC Making Progress on Outages; Expecting More Crews The Daily Sentinel Friday, September 30, 2005 While Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative receives offers of help each day, the logistical problem of housing and feeding workers has delayed effort to aid customers, according to Richard Parker, director of administration. The Texas Electric Cooperatives Association has been a tremendous help in organizing and obtaining relief crews from all across the state that were made available within hours after the hurricane passed, Parker said. "We are extremely grateful for all the assistance we have received from TEC, our neighboring and distant cooperatives and out-of-state cooperatives," Parker said. "We are expecting about 30 more crews from out-of-state to arrive tonight. Some crews are even bringing supplies and materials with them." After days of intensive work, some signs of progress are becoming evident, Parker said. A large portion of the system in the north has been restored (Nacogdoches, Shelby, and Panola counties) and while there is still work to be done, there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel in that area, he said. "We are also at a point where we have seen some progress in Sabine and southern San Augustine counties," he said. "Crews have worked to clear miles of line from fallen trees and we hope to have transmission service restored in Braoddus sometime Saturday." The city of Hemphill had received service and several outlying areas were being energized by Wednesday night, Parker said. "While approximately 50 percent of our 38,000 meters remain without power, the removal of debris is going well, and most of the major lines on our system will be cleared so that repair work can begin in a matter of days," Parker said. "As always, we ask that members continue to report outages daily on our automated system at 1-800-392-5986 to ensure that service is restored as soon as possible." from The Daily Sentinel, Friday, September 30, 2005 http://www.dailysentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/09/30/20050930NDSdetec.html High percentage of DETEC
customers without electricity from The Daily Sentinel
"We are in the midst of a huge battle to restore power to all customers," said Richard Parker, director of administration. "Major repairs are hampered by downed and mangled timber, which gets worse as you travel south on our system. DETEC has enlisted the aid of numerous contractors, other Texas cooperatives, Texas municipalities and the local communities, Parker said. Many co-ops and contractors rallied when the storm came, Parker said, with 12 electric cooperatives and numerous contractors are helping DETEC get power restored. Crews will work continuously until the entire system is up and running, he said. "At last count, DETEC had more than 250 linemen in the field working to restore power," Parker said. "One of the biggest problems is housing and support services for this large number of workers. We have set up one staging area at the San Augustine Rodeo Arena that will support 200 workers and are in the process of working with FEMA to add two additional camps housing 250 persons at Pineland and Hemphill. We have linemen and crews ready to come to our aid as soon as we can house and feed them." In addition to DETEC employees, linemen are staged in hotels in Nacogdoches, San Augustine and Center. The cooperative is capable of fielding 1,800 outage calls per minute using an automated system that helps linemen quickly locate precisely the source of a distribution problem. Due to the magnitude of the storm, phone lines are being manned in the main office to give more updated information. Since the beginning of the storm, the DETEC automated system has logged more than 20,245 calls, not including calls answered by employees in the customer service department. The main office is closed for regular business, so all efforts may be concentrated on the storm outages. The headquarters in San Augustine is closed to all walk-in customers, Parker said. "Our current estimate for members in some areas of our eight-county system is up to four weeks," Parker said. "Not all of our service area was hit as hard as some areas." The southern portion of the system was hardest hit, he said. Power has been restored to approximately 12,000 of the 38,000 customers served by DETEC. Three East Texas Cooperatives Hard Hit by Power Outages Three Southeast Texas electric cooperatives still suffer significant electrical outages and damages due to Hurricane Rita. As of Tuesday morning, September 27, an estimated 102,411 member-consumers were without electricity. The hardest hit cooperatives were Jasper-Newton, Deep East Texas and Sam Houston. Jasper-Newton and Sam Houston electric cooperatives were totally without power. “Eleven other cooperatives affected by Hurricane Rita have restored all or most customer power,” said Tiffin Wortham, vice president, Member Services/Loss Control of Texas Electric Cooperatives (TEC), the statewide association. “I expect Deep East Electric Cooperative to make significant progress... but a portion of their territory is served by Entergy and will not likely be restored for two to four weeks,” he added. At last count, 140 Texas cooperative crewmembers and contract workers were en route to Jasper-Newton Electric Cooperative by Monday morning. An additional 135 workers were on their way to Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, Wortham said. Satellite telephones and WildBlue satellite Internet service are soon expected to improve communication among crews and their base camps. Meters without electricity: Sam Houston Electric Cooperative: 52,000 Jasper-Newton Electric Cooperative: 20,911 Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative: 24,000 Rusk County Electric Cooperative: 4,000 Upshur-Rural Electric Cooperative: 1,500 BEC Crew Helping Restore Power After Hurricane Rita Wednesday, Sept. 28 - BEC got word that our restoration crew is staying and working in the Nacogdoches area. The BEC crew includes Jim Boyd, Leakey; Mark Jebbia, Bandera; Clint Brown, Bandera; Mark Busby, Comfort; and Robert Rodriguez, Bandera. Mark Busby is the foreman for the crew. It looks like the BEC group has their work cut out for them. DETEC Lists Helpers: The Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative, Inc. (DETEC) is facing a huge restoration process. "The efforts for power restoration after Hurricane Rita have been in full force. The cooperation of several Coop's and contracting crews of 275 people are and will be working tediously around the eight county's we serve. The Coop's involved are: Bandera EC, Big Country, Deaf Smith, WCEC, Wise, Fort Belknap EC, Central Texas EC, Swisher Elec. Coop, BCEC, Farmers EC and McLenna Coop," said DETEC on its web site. DETEC Outages and Problems Make Newspaper: The headline for The Daily Sentinel, the Nacogdoches area newspaper, said today "Most of county still without electricity." "A large portion of the city and most of the county continued to be without electricity Tuesday, and most residents of rural Nacogdoches County are now wondering how long their water supplies, and their patience, will last on generated power," said The Daily Sentinel. "Nacogdoches County residents who are customers of Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative could still be looking at one-and-a-half to two weeks without electricity, Larry Warren [General Manager] said Tuesday. 'Some people in the southern part of our region are looking at two to three weeks before power is restored,' Warren said. 'But as time goes on, that could change. It could be even longer. We have some devastation out there that is unbelievable.'” As of Tuesday night, DETEC had 185 people working in the field and had brought in 123 pieces of additional equipment. Progress was slow, according to the news report. The article goes on to quote Warren about the problems he is having in getting basic services for the incoming workers. Things like temporary housing and mobile showers are in short supply. He said more personnel were available, but they could not come as DETEC had no way to meet their basic needs. “We still have two sections of transmission lines out that are affecting four substations," said Warren. “I feel so bad for our customers, but we will get through this.” (Photograph by The Daily Sentinel, Nacogdoches) Tuesday, Sept. 27 -- The BEC crew that left Monday to help restore power in East Texas called Arlen Williams, BEC Operations Manager, last night about 9 P.M. The crew had made contact with Deep East Texas Cooperative, Inc. (DETEC) officials. DETEC fed them last night and were able to get them in a motel room. The BEC crew included Jim Boyd, Leakey; Mark Jebbia, Bandera; Clint Brown, Bandera; Mark Busby, Comfort; and Robert Rodriguez, Bandera. Mark Busby is the foreman for the crew. He said from what they could see there was little water damage and they did not think getting stuck would be a big problem. They did see substantial wind damage "lots of broken cross arms and trees down." It appeared there was still main circuits that had to be restored. DETEC said the BEC crew would begin working today in the Nacogdoches area. Monday, Sept. 26 -- Five Bandera Electric Cooperative, Inc. (BEC) line workers and four specialized utility vehicles left the Hill Country on Monday, September 26 headed east. The BEC crew was off to San Augustine, Texas to assist Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative, Inc. (DETEC) with its Hurricane Rita recover effort.
“We feel for the people who have been impacted by Hurricane Rita. We realized we needed to help our neighbors to the east. So many crews are worn out after working the devastation left earlier by Hurricane Katrina,” said Arlen Williams, BEC Operations Manager. “This means all our employees will have to work a little harder, but we just had to help.” DETEC serves about 30,000 members in eight counties including San Augustine, Sabine, Panola, Shelby, Newton, Nacogdoches, Jasper and Rusk. The co-op has over 6,600 miles of overhead distribution lines, about 300 miles of underground distribution lines and over 230 miles of transmission lines.“Power lines were tossed about like spaghetti by Hurricane Rita's wild winds,” said The Lufkin Daily News on its web site. “Rita went from east of Port Arthur into Jasper County with 75-80 mph sustained winds and gusts of 100-110 mph, then through Broaddus and San Augustine.” BEC is working with DETEC through the Texas Electric Cooperatives organization. Mutual aid agreements allow cooperatives such as BEC to be reimbursed for all expenses incurred while helping to restore electric service. BEC had previously released some contract crews to go work on outages from Hurricane Katrina. |
Bandera Electric Cooperative, Inc., P. O.
Box 667, Bandera Texas 78003, 1-866-BANDERA
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One
of the problems with power restoration in the area hit by Hurricane Rita is
significant damage to the power transmission network. It brings power from power
plants to cooperatives such as DETEC, and until repairs are made in that system
power can not be fully restored in a cooperative's. Entergy is a company that owns
much of the transmission network in east Texas. The company reports as of
September 30, there are approximately 231 transmission lines and 235 substations
out of service. They have close to 10,000 workers trying to get the system
restored.
BEC
employees making the trip are: Jim Boyd, Leakey; Mark Jebbia, Bandera; Clint
Brown, Bandera; Mark Busby, Comfort; and Robert Rodriguez, Bandera. The
group went prepared to stay in primitive conditions as there are no motel
rooms available in the area.