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AUSTIN (KXAN) – Paul Sebastian remembers his winter storm Uri experience all too well.
“We were without [power and water] for almost four days straight, ”said the Austin resident.
Calls by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) last week to conserve electricity raised concerns about the possibility of summer power outages. The network operator withdrew these calls at the end of last week.
In the event of outages this summer, Sebastian said he was buying a generator as an emergency power source.
How is Austin Energy preparing its infrastructure for extreme summer heat?
“I definitely checked it out,” he says. “I’ll probably get something, but wait until the buzz is over when prices fall again.”
We wanted to know how the city of Austin would protect its most vulnerable people if the power went out for a long time. Using cooling centers to relieve residents of the heat is a big part of the plan.
The city told KXAN that the cooling centers, which include leisure centers and libraries, were activated during outages in parts of the city over Memorial Day weekend. Now they are ready. The use of the centers varies; The city said a widespread warming recommendation could lead to the opening of cooling centers across the city, or the city could open certain centers near areas where power outages occur.
“We made sure we had a good list of facilities that are unlikely to have a power failure because they are on critical infrastructure networks,” said Bryce Bencivengo, who works for the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management division.
The city opens the centers as needed; it sent us a list of 36 cooling centers. But two thirds of them (24 locations) are not available every day due to summer camps and other activities. Because of this, officials asked us not to publish the list.
ERCOT: The risk of emergency network conditions in summer is low
“We’d hate to send someone to a place, or worse, a place that is not safe during a disaster,” he said.
Bencivengo said the city has several options to notify residents of the opening of refrigeration centers, even during a crisis situation. This includes through media releases, social media, 311, text messages, or calls through Warn Central Texas, and emails through Austin Energy.
He added that the city would also share this information with partner agencies that can reach the most vulnerable. He cited meals on wheels as an example.
Other cities take a different approach. In San Antonio, a map of the cooling centers is available on the city’s website. Emergency officials there said the city had 29 centers that were activated on Monday.
A spokesman for the city of San Antonio emergency management noted that there are many residents at risk who do not have air conditioning.
As summer approaches, ERCOT says the risk of controlled outages is low based on current data
City employees provide information about resilience hubs
In the meantime, the city of Austin is making greater efforts to open “resilience hubs” that could provide shelter for residents in the event of an emergency. The hubs would resemble neighborhood centers with emergency power, food, and water, and close to public transportation.
Citing the February winter storm, Austin city council members in April asked city manager Spencer Cronk to return by June with budget recommendations, funding strategies and a timeline for creating a community-wide emergency resilience hub plan.
In a memo sent to the council earlier this month, city officials said it would take more time to update the plan, which would include six pilot hubs.
UT study links ERCOT problems from the storms in February with recent nature conservation inquiries
The staff said they expect to provide an update on a pilot program by July 10. The council is currently in the summer recess.
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