1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Emergency Session 5 Tuesday, February 23, 2021 6 1:30 p.m. 7 Commissioners' Courtroom 8 Kerr County Courthouse 9 Kerrville, Texas 78028 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: ROB KELLY, Kerr County Judge HARLEY BELEW, Commissioner Precinct 1 24 TOM MOSER, Commissioner Precinct 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Precinct 3 25 DON HARRIS, Commissioner Precinct 4 2 1 I-N-D-E-X 2 NO. PAGE 3 1.1 Consider and discuss power failure report 3 from Bob Loth of Central Texas Electric 4 Co-op. 5 1.3 Consider and discuss emergency assistance 54 for Kerr County residents who have been 6 impacted by the winter weather event. 7 1.2 Consider, discuss and take appropriate 87 action regarding the Local State of Disaster 8 due to Severe Winter Weather that was signed by Judge Kelly on February 22, 2021. 9 *** Adjournment. 89 10 *** Reporter's Certificate. 90 11 * * * * * * 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 JUDGE KELLY: (Gavel bang.) It is Tuesday, 2 February the 23rd, 2021, a little passed 1:30 in the 3 afternoon, and the Kerr County Commissioners' Court is 4 in this emergency session. 5 I called this meeting after I declared a 6 State of Disaster yesterday, and wanted to have the 7 opportunity to have -- get reports on kind of where we 8 were with this thing because it's a mess. 9 So first thing we ask, is there anyone that 10 wants to address the Court that's not on the agenda, 11 about something that's not on the agenda? Okay, good. 12 Well, let's to go first item the agenda is 13 to consider, discuss the power failure report from Bob 14 Loth of Central Texas Electric Co-op. We really 15 appreciate you coming over to talk to us. 16 MR. LOTH: Thank you, Sir. Commissioners, 17 Judge, guests, I guess. My names Bob Loth, and I am the 18 general manager at Central Texas Electric Co-op. This 19 has been a long tough struggle. We started -- and I 20 don't want to go through the whole ordeal of how the 21 weather got to where it was. 22 We started with two inches of rain, an inch 23 of ice, then some snow and then some zero weather, and 24 we had ERCOT. I'm not planning to speak to the rolling 25 blackouts today. That was completely out of our 4 1 control. 2 I was asked to bring an update today. 3 Beginning -- I have to get my days right. Beginning, I 4 guess the Friday after the storm, we started losing -- a 5 lot of people lost power that Thursday evening. That 6 Friday we began -- we were still in full blast 7 restoration mode with my employees. 8 We began to know that we were going to be 9 without power for some days so we started working on a 10 rebuild program, is what I'll call it. So we have 11 restoration, trying to get the power on that can be got 12 on without, you know, major damage to the lines. And 13 then to follow would be the rebuild. We worked that -- 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Bob, let me ask you, 15 why don't you explain KPUB relation to Central Texas 16 Electric Co-op. Most people don't know that. 17 MR. LOTH: Okay. Well, we serve into Kerr 18 County and we butt up to probably roughly half or maybe 19 a little bit more of KPUB's service territory. Bandera, 20 I believe, is on the other side, or most of the other 21 side. So we've had a long good standing relationship 22 with KPUB. They've been brothers with us. 23 And I can go back 15 years when the LCRA 24 allowed us to buy partial power outside of the LCRA. 25 And Central Texas and KPUB, and I believe the City of 5 1 Georgetown, we were known as the Three Amigos. We did 2 things different, and we did them together, and that 3 worked very well. And we -- like I said we've had a 4 long good standing relationship. 5 When we were able to call for help and get 6 help, obviously all of the other utilities in the state 7 where having issues. They weren't sending people until 8 they knew that they were safe. Same thing I would have 9 done. 10 Mike called me early in the process, Bob, if 11 you need some help, we're here. They started working 12 almost immediately because when those temperatures got 13 down and all that ice was on the road, into 14 Fredericksburg which is where our headquarters are, you 15 couldn't get in or out going any direction, so for me to 16 get crews was impossible. 17 I had a call from someone, they offered me a 18 helicopter. I said unless it can dig me a whole it's 19 not going to do me any good. Okay. People couldn't get 20 here. Mike calls, and they started picking up stuff 21 that they could get to with crews that they had 22 available because they were still working some of their 23 own issues. 24 So again, I can't tell you -- I don't have a 25 better friend in the municipal industry than KPUB. 6 1 That's the biggest compliment I can give you. 2 JUDGE KELLY: Mr. Loth, let me just explain 3 because the people can't see. The man standing behind 4 you is Mike Wittler and he's the Manager for KPUB. 5 MR. LOTH: That is correct. 6 JUDGE KELLY: So we've got both of you today 7 to help us with that? 8 MR. LOTH: And I asked Mike to come because 9 sometimes when you're talking to several people who 10 really don't understand how we do things, it's nice to 11 have someone in the room that's nodding their head and 12 saying that makes sense, or maybe adding on to something 13 that maybe I failed to say. 14 The good thing about Mike and me from a tag 15 team perspective is I'm a financial person, okay; I'm 16 not an engineer. I didn't design any of these lines. 17 And Mike didn't either, but Mike is an engineer, so he 18 can probably help me a lot on the engineering-type 19 questions that there -- that may come up. Okay. 20 So anyway, we were in the midst of this and 21 started to plan our rebuild stage. Based on the 22 information at the time, and you -- I've got a hundred 23 and 50 people, a hundred and 50 people, 25 crews on the 24 ground that started -- well, we started getting crews, I 25 think we were at ten on Sunday, today we're at 25. 7 1 So we started getting people in as we could. 2 The logistics of getting rooms and serving meals to 3 people working 16 hours a day is an incredible task just 4 in itself. We were prepared, we got that done. And 5 I -- we're not wasting any time. People say well why 6 don't you have a thousand people in here. Well I don't 7 have the materials for a thousand people. I don't have 8 the resources for a thousand -- I can get some help, but 9 it doesn't do any good to have people standing around 10 with their hands in their pocket. That does no one any 11 good. 12 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Can you tell us where 13 we're at right now? 14 MR. LOTH: I have -- 15 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Or what's down and 16 what's up? 17 MR. LOTH: Well, I have a map laid out 18 there. 19 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Can you tell the people 20 watching at home, the people in this room, how many 21 lines you have down, how many poles -- 22 MR. LOTH: I can't tell you how many lines 23 and I can't tell you -- I can't tell you for sure how 24 many poles. Our estimation is that we have about a 25 thousand three phase poles down, which we call a main 8 1 feeder, and we have probably at least that many single 2 phase poles down. 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: In what geographical 4 area? 5 MR. LOTH: From the -- in Gillespie County, 6 which -- y'all it's not a big concern for you, but I've 7 got stuff down from 290 east of Fredericksburg all the 8 way north in Gillespie County all the way down to I-10 9 in Kerr County. Kendall County did not take a major 10 hit. Mason and Llano County, which we all serve, had 11 almost no trouble other than transmission and substation 12 issues. 13 So I've heard -- you know we all hear 14 things. I've heard well, there -- all their poles are 15 old and rotten, that's why this all fell over. If 16 that's the case that would have happened in LLano and 17 Mason, too. That's not a fact. We just built a three 18 phase -- a tie line just out of town here. We finished 19 it last year. There's 20 brand new one year old -- one 20 year old; not brand new. One year old poles that are 21 snapped off at the ground. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Bob, where does Central 23 Texas and Electric -- 24 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Let me finish. Hold on 25 a minute. 9 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I'm just trying to get 2 to Kerr County. 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I'm trying to get to 4 the point here. And here's the deal. Is that from the 5 weight of the ice, and they fell over, and you got power 6 lines on the ground? I want us to get a picture in our 7 minds -- 8 MR. LOTH: That had as much to do with it as 9 anything else. In addition to that, there are lines 10 where trees are grown over the lines. 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: That fell on them? 12 MR. LOTH: Maybe outside of our right-of-way 13 and they fall onto the pole or onto the wire. And when 14 there's that much weight on those wires, if you get one 15 pole down, it's almost a miracle that there's not a 16 domino effect. And that's the good news is that didn't 17 happen. It happened in some places. The most I've 18 heard is 30 in a row. 19 I drove out south of I-10 the other day, and 20 the first five miles there was nothing down. And we got 21 to the next one and there's a pole down, and then for 22 the next ten -- it's either cross arms or poles broke 23 off. 24 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So that everybody 25 understands, if I have cords plugged in from here to 10 1 City Hall and one of them's unplugged, I don't have 2 power. So that's what you're talking about, so 3 everybody understands. It's not necessarily because of 4 ERCOT that people didn't have power in some areas. In 5 some areas it is. In other areas because we have down 6 poles, and we have down wires. 7 MR. LOTH: Right. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: And that's what you're 9 working on. 10 MR. LOTH: And that's what takes time in the 11 restoration. And that's why I'm calling -- I'm calling 12 it a rebuild because if we had multiple places where we 13 only had one pole down, that's restoration. A rebuild 14 is when you're rebuilding significant -- 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Where do you provide 16 power in Kerr County? 17 MR. LOTH: I provide power in Kerr County -- 18 West Kerr County -- or yeah. East Kerr County, I'm 19 sorry. East Kerr County. It's western Gillespie 20 County. A lot of -- Mountain Home. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Divide. 22 MR. LOTH: No, not Divide. Mountain Home -- 23 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Ingram. 24 MR. LOTH: And Ingram is kind of an 25 interesting place. 11 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Because all those are 2 West Kerr County. 3 MR. LOTH: And everything north. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: You said east, but 5 that's west. 6 MR. WITTLER: KPUB service area is long and 7 narrow through the County. It's probably about 40 miles 8 long and about five miles north to south on average. 9 And we -- our service area generally follows the 10 Guadalupe River. So CTEC is north of us everywhere in 11 Kerr County. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Thanks, Mike. Gotcha. 13 MR. WITTLER: And the west end they go 14 around the western side of us. 15 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Are materials available 16 to get this stuff done, or is the manpower available? 17 MR. LOTH: The manpower is there. We 18 decided that our target when we started developing our 19 plan was to start with 25 crews. We're going to 20 reassess tonight or tomorrow. And if we can take five 21 more and keep them busy and work, yes. And materials is 22 a part of that. 23 Currently, we have got materials to work, 24 and appears that we've got a good pipeline set up. Our 25 statewide association is a distributor of electric 12 1 products, and so that's a big deal for is. So I feel 2 confident, and we've got the materials. I feel 3 confident that the manpower, and I think you're going to 4 see big strides. I mean we got full power manwise 5 yesterday, and I think we turned 2000 people up. And I 6 can't promise -- that's not going to happen everyday 7 because it's going to get smaller and smaller because 8 the areas that we're working in are smaller and you 9 don't have as many big pieces to put on. 10 Another thing I can quickly address, there's 11 rumors out there we're turning the rich people on first. 12 That's not true. We're going to the places where we can 13 work the most efficiently, not use bulldozers to drag us 14 around. Get things done and get thee most people on. 15 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Is there a makeshift -- 16 in other words you're going to have to do a full 17 assessment at some point and see where the danger might 18 lie that something else is going to fall or that you 19 have failure for. Are there some -- some make-dos for 20 the time being until you can go back through all that, 21 or is it too dangerous to take that risk and stand a 22 pole up that you haven't thoroughly checked over? 23 MR. LOTH: Well, we're not standing them up; 24 we're having to re-dig a new hole and put a whole new 25 pole in there. 13 1 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So it's all new when 2 one's down. 3 MR. LOTH: Yes, Sir. 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: And they're not ones 5 leaning or the branches -- 6 MR. LOTH: And we assessed -- I had crews 7 out here as early as Saturday assessing the lines that 8 we were going go down so that we knew what materials to 9 send. We were working in preparation, and we basically 10 we're going to have to drive all of these lines to look 11 at them in order to make sure that everything's on. We 12 do that just as a -- as part of our restoration to make 13 sure. Because there's no sense locking a breaker and 14 throwing a breaker in there if you don't know that it's 15 going to come on. 16 COMMISSIONER BELEW: And is that a time 17 consuming thing, or is that a quick assessment? 18 MR. LOTH: It's not overly time consuming. 19 I mean the part that I guess I want y'all to understand 20 about this, because and I'll use the 479 is best 21 example. We have a takeoff at 290 and 479 that comes 22 south. I drove that line Sunday. The damage isn't as 23 bad. We have three contractors that are up there -- 24 three contract crews are up there. I got a lot of boots 25 on the ground. It's not going to surprise me if we get 14 1 that three phase back on by tomorrow afternoon, evening. 2 And when we turn that three phase on there's 3 a lot of taps that come off of that, and depending on 4 how long those taps are or what damage is on those taps, 5 those feeders are going to come on too -- or not those 6 feeders, those pieces will also come on. So that's a 7 big deal. So they're -- and it's going to be sporadic 8 because depending which phase you're on, you may -- and 9 this is where we're -- this is going to come for us is 10 my neighbor's got power but I don't. Okay, and that's 11 coming. And we're going to deal with it. When we -- 12 when we work that we're going to try to work some of the 13 major -- when we turn that up, we're going to try to 14 work some of the major taps, and try avoid as much of 15 that as possible. 16 This is -- it's a big job. I think we've 17 done a lot of preparation. And so far, it has -- it has 18 followed suit, and we're actually maybe a day ahead of 19 where I was hoping to be a week and a half ago. I think 20 we're doing a great -- I think we're doing a great job. 21 I got good people working. 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Now, also so that 23 people understand, if you have a power line at the 24 highway or at your maybe road, and you have a long 25 stretch to get back to your place, you may have problems 15 1 in between there. That's not for you to deal with right 2 now. You're getting power out to people on the grid. 3 Are you going to -- can you, or can you direct any of 4 these homeowners who have a downed line on their 5 property, what they should do? Any direction? 6 MR. LOTH: If they have a downed line 7 because I've had people ask me, is there anyway we can 8 help. If there's -- if there is brush from the storm or 9 other brush that's in the right-of-way, obviously if 10 those right-of-ways are cleaned up and we can drive 11 right down, versus having to trim and cut wood and move 12 stuff as we go, it's going to allow us to move faster. 13 But we do not -- when we try -- I think that 14 we've gotten every downed line off the road. Because 15 obviously you don't know if it's hot or not. I don't 16 want anybody touching anything, any power line, that's 17 not an authorized personnel. Period. 18 We were -- you know all the help that 19 somebody can give us, we'll take. And those downed 20 power line instances, we need to take care of that. And 21 where there's 30 poles down, there's a lot of wire on 22 the ground. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: To follow up on what 24 Commissioner Belew's question. But you're going to -- 25 you are responsible or any power company is responsible 16 1 to the meter. And from the meter to wherever it goes, 2 that's what you're talking about. 3 MR. LOTH: Yes, right. 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Right. 5 MR. LOTH: And if somebody's meter loop's 6 pulled off their house and we stop at the trans -- at 7 the meter. We'll go from transformer pole to the meter 8 pole, and that's where our service ends. I don't really 9 think that I've got else. 10 Those numbers that are on there, that are on 11 that map, those indicate how many crews are in those 12 areas working. When we get that -- where that three is, 13 when we get south -- obviously when we get finished with 14 that first line down there, we'll probably send one crew 15 west, and we'll probably send two crews down here and 16 split them up and start -- you're going to see stuff 17 happen. You're going to see -- 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the color 19 difference? 20 MR. LOTH: The orange is out. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Orange is out, and the 22 purple -- 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: By the way nobody can 24 see what you're talking about. 25 MR. LOTH: The orange is out. The purple -- 17 1 the purple slash pink is the three phase line. 2 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So most of it's out. 3 That's all mostly orange. 4 MR. LOTH: That's correct. But you'll see a 5 lot of feet even tomorrow. If y'all had asked me to 6 come Thursday or Friday, I'd have a better report. And 7 I hate to laugh when I say that, but -- 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: You're doing good. We 9 all appreciate what y'all are doing. 10 MR. LOTH: The weather has cooperated 11 terrifically. You know, another thing that I can 12 comment, and many of you may have looked on our outage 13 maps on our website. Mike, I don't know what y'all did 14 with yours. Pedernales took there's down after a while, 15 because when those rolling brownouts started, your map 16 lights up. And somebody has to individually go in there 17 and take those out when they roll them out, so you're 18 just sitting there spinning your wheels trying to keep 19 up with that map. So I would not pay any attention 20 really to that map until next week, because we've been 21 trying to clean it up as we go. 22 I am hopeful -- and here I'll go out on a 23 limb with this one. I'm hopeful that we're going to 24 have all of our three phase in the air by Sunday. Okay. 25 I'm not going to commit to that. But I think that we're 18 1 going to have -- if we don't have it all up, it's going 2 to be a significant portion. I feel we've got that many 3 people out there working. 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: What you're dealing 5 with, and the outages, this is physical poles on the 6 ground, lines on the ground, how much a part, if you 7 know, you may or may not know, did that play in this 8 rolling blackout availability? 9 MR. LOTH: Nothing. 10 COMMISSIONER BELEW: We need to know that. 11 MR. LOTH: I mean if they'd have been on, 12 they'd have got rolled. And I -- I mean I was in the 13 rolled part, I don't know how y'all got rolled over 14 here, but I was on for an hour and I was off for two. 15 And they might have well just turned me off because that 16 heater wasn't going to heat that house in the hour that 17 it was on and going to be off for two more. 18 COMMISSIONER BELEW: It was more like 8 19 hours off and 45 minutes on in a lot of places, so -- 20 MR. LOTH: I can only speak for myself. I 21 was out of power for the first 25 hours for the thing. 22 I live fairly close to town. Only about four miles from 23 a substation, so it didn't get my -- my area didn't get 24 so bad. Later on though in the middle of those rolls, 25 my wife said we went off at 12:30 and when I went to bed 19 1 that night at 8:30, 9 o'clock, it was 41 degrees in my 2 house. I mean I lived it also. Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Bob. Can you or Mike, 4 or maybe possibly neither of you will know this. It 5 seems like the brownout or the rolling brownouts that 6 ERCOT was doing was at random. I mean we got ours at 7 our house, the first one -- we were very fortunate, we 8 had power for a long time. And then they started the 9 rolling. Well after everyone else had heard was having 10 rolling -- was having rolling blackouts, or whatever you 11 call them. And then we had a rolling one, and then the 12 power came on and ten minutes later a tree fell and we 13 went out for three days. You know -- 14 MR. WITTLER: Yeah. The rolling outages for 15 KPUB, CTEC and a lot of the other, you know, small 16 utilities in Central Texas are managed by LCRA. And 17 LCRA turns off a substation transformer at the time. 18 It's a big chunk of load. To manage the rolling outages 19 yourself you have to stand up a 24 by 7 dispatch center 20 and you basically have to be able to respond to ERCOT 21 within minutes. 22 And we had looked at that. KPUB had looked 23 at that in 2011. And the event we had then wasn't this 24 painful and we decided that it didn't make sense to 25 stand up our own dispatch center. I mean you're talking 20 1 about quite a few personnel and everything else. We'll 2 be re evaluating that. I've talked to CTEC'S Engineer 3 about it as well, because one challenge or one problem 4 you have is you drop the load for an hour, all the 5 houses get colder, and when you try to turn it on what 6 we're seeing is the load increasing in the neighborhood 7 of 40, 50 percent. And then on our -- 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Why is that, Mike? 9 MR. WITTLER: It's just because -- 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: More energy required. 11 MR. WITTLER: Well, say you got a thousand 12 customers on a circuit and their A.C.'s or their meters 13 are cycling on and off, you know, so you don't have them 14 on all at once. Well, if it's six degrees outside and 15 you turn them all off, an hour later everyone needs it, 16 and so that's why it jumps up so much. 17 For some of our bigger or more heavily 18 loaded stations that meant when they turned it back on 19 the substation transformer was overloaded, and it would 20 trip out. I mean we had all kinds of headaches with it. 21 And so -- 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So when people hear 23 that something would have burned up, you can't put that 24 kind of overload. If you have a switch that goes off, 25 just like your breaker are at your house, if you force 21 1 that on you can create failure or fire or hazard. 2 MR. WITTLER: Yeah. You're talking about 3 overloading a half million dollar piece -- it's really 4 more like a million these days, a million dollar piece 5 of equipment, and we can't, I mean -- 6 MR. LOTH: That you can't get the next day. 7 MR. WITTLER: Right. With a six month lead 8 time or an 8 month lead time even for an emergency. 9 COMMISSIONER BELEW: When people know this 10 stuff they're more understanding. When you just hear we 11 were seconds away from the whole thing going down, then 12 everybody can call b.s. on that, because nobody knows 13 what the future is. You're telling us stuff we need to 14 know. 15 MR. WITTLER: But other things that 16 happened, too, at two of our stations. Rim Rock, which 17 was -- which is Kerrville South basically, and then a 18 unit at Kerrville stadium, which is like Scenic Hills, 19 Scenic Valley, Sidney Baker North. When we interrupted 20 those, LCRA's equipment at Rim Rock they lost 21 communication and they weren't able to turn the station 22 back on. And so KPUB dispatched -- 23 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Computer relay, or what 24 was it? 25 MR. WITTLER: It's telecommunications. And 22 1 I don't know if it's LCRA's fiber or lease line. So we 2 had to dispatch a crew out there to -- our personnel to 3 reenergize. So that outage instead of two, you know, it 4 turns into three or something like that. And this was 5 in the middle of the night, you know, that -- I mean it 6 got my house. And so I know -- I mean I knew when it 7 happened, and so we had problems like that. 8 And I'll tell you operationally on the KPUB 9 side Monday through Wednesday, we saw more problems at 10 the substation level than we normally see in a year. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Mike, how are critical 12 facilities like hospitals and things like that done, and 13 what could be done for water distribution plants and 14 things like that in the future? 15 MR. WITTLER: So we can -- so there are 16 customers that saw people who never got their lights 17 turned off. And a lot of that was customers fed by the 18 substation that serves the VA Hospital, and Peterson 19 Hospital and the State Hospital. We keep the hospitals 20 on. We keep natural gas compressor stations on. 21 If we operated a local program, we could do 22 smaller blocks of load, and we could have -- we could be 23 more responsive to local needs. And that is probably 24 going to be a pretty compelling case now to go ahead and 25 stand up that dispatch center. We may looking at 23 1 working with CTEC or even Bandera to jointly do 2 something where, you know, we -- 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: You're going to 4 decentralize maybe. 5 MR. WITTLER: Yeah. 6 MR. LOTH: Share the cost. 7 MR. WITTLER: And we had, you know, we had a 8 call from Windstream saying we're going to lose our 9 switch here. Their generator went down downtown. That 10 switch feeds 911. And we couldn't get any -- we 11 couldn't get any change from LCRA on their plan. I 12 think that 911 was able to reroute. You know, and there 13 were other -- I know there were other issues across the 14 State where -- or with the LCRA guys. It -- you know, 15 I'm not trying to go kick LCRA or anything. It's very 16 chaotic in those control centers when you're dealing 17 with that. And LCRA's dealing with it for a very big 18 region of central Texas. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, Mike, you and CTEC 20 both in control or distribute the electricity or the 21 power within your area. 22 MR. WITTLER: We have to follow ERCOT's 23 directives. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But so let me ask the 25 question. So if you say you provide yours -- assured to 24 1 provide power to the hospital, let's just use that. So 2 how do you do that when ERCOT is telling you what you 3 can and cannot do? 4 MR. WITTLER: Well, ERCOT tells you that you 5 have to set -- what ERCOT says is statewide, we need 15 6 thousand megawatts turned off. And then LCRA's managing 7 this program and they know that their share of that is 8 say six percent. So LCRA's gotta shed six percent. I 9 think they were shedding about 250 megawatts, which is 10 like 25 substations. It was just tons -- 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: By you say shed you 12 mean turn the power down? 13 MR. WITTLER: No. Turn it off. 14 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So you're -- 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So how do you -- 16 COMMISSIONER BELEW: -- turn it off. 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So I didn't get my 18 answer. So how do you get -- so how do you manage that 19 to see that the hospital stays on for instance? 20 MR. LOTH: There's a list. 21 MR. WITTLER: They have a list and they have 22 stations that will not be interrupted. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So that's not your 24 control; that's LCRA? Gotcha. Thank you. 25 MR. WITTLER: Yes. It's part of the plan in 25 1 advance. There are also a couple stations that are on 2 another shedding program that it's an automatic, very -- 3 it responds very quickly to the type of event that human 4 interaction can't respond to. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So LCRA is controlling 6 the substations -- 7 MR. WITTLER: Yes. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- in a nutshell that's 9 it. 10 MR. WITTLER: Yeah. Just comments earlier 11 from a design -- to give you a perspective on what CTEC 12 got hit with. The national electric safety code sets 13 the design standards for utility lines. And they have 14 three zones across the country for wind and ice loading. 15 And it's -- it's light down on -- believe it or not, 16 light down on the coast, and then medium -- and the 17 medium line starts -- we're right on the border of 18 medium, and then heavy starts at about norther Texas and 19 then up through the northeast. 20 Light zone, which technically Kerrville is 21 in, is you don't design for ice. The medium zone, which 22 Fredericksburg is probably in and northern Gillespie 23 County is in, you only design for a quarter inch of ice. 24 They had one inch of ice. And then the heavy zone, 25 which is I mean Maine, is only a half inch of ice, so -- 26 1 MR. LOTH: An inch of ice would have knocked 2 anything down. 3 MR. WITTLER: Right. An inch of ice 4 anywhere across the country would have created massive 5 outages. They were very responsive. We were 6 coordinating with them Thursday and Friday as the -- as 7 the storm came in. And we had crews working Saturday 8 before the rolling outages. Started Saturday, they were 9 work over by 479. 10 Yesterday the crew was back over there 11 repairing damage that they had repaired a week ago. So 12 we put up cross arms that got torn down again by more 13 ice. So brand new -- literally brand new cross arms in 14 that case. So I think that's all, you know, I think 15 that's all I had unless y'all have questions. 16 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Bob, I have a question 17 for you. But the maybe thing, I mean when everything 18 hit the fan, you know, y'all are under nder siege, 19 trying to get back what you could up and get crews out 20 and be working your tails off around the clock. But 21 what I -- 75 percent of my calls, e-mail, text, 22 everything I get from people is this the utter lack of 23 communication. Why can't you tell me am I looking at 24 days. I mean hours, days, weeks, you know. Man, if I 25 know it's going to be weeks, I don't like it, but man 27 1 I'll go to Houston and visit Junior for a week or 2 something, it hurts. Don't plight that. And I -- you 3 know and then the PR part of it has been a disaster. 4 MR. LOTH: That's a great question. And 5 I -- this is -- this is the best answer I can give you. 6 Where we were and where we are and where we will be 7 until that three phase is in the air, is kind of a 8 global message. Once we get the three phase in the air, 9 we will be able to scope down to areas, and give better 10 information. 11 It's like today, I mean, me driving down 12 479, and you get to the end of 479 down there, and if 13 you asked me on Sunday, I'd have said you're probably 14 looking at a week. It might come on tomorrow. Because 15 if you're on one of those spans, taps, then there's a 16 chance it's going to come on. 17 So and I -- and I got all my information 18 people, all my phone answers together yesterday, because 19 they were telling people it could be one to four weeks. 20 Well, the general public, they're hearing four weeks and 21 they're like freaking out. And I don't think it's 22 going -- my hope is that by the end of next week that we 23 have this -- and I'm going to try to cover -- under a 24 thousand. We're currently at almost six. 25 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Six thousand homes? 28 1 MR. LOTH: Homes, meters, yes. Meters, 2 okay. We are blowing and going right now and if the 3 weather holds we are going to -- we're going to make 4 remarkable progress in the next week. And we will do -- 5 I mean, the thing is this morning I get a call from our 6 national association, Touchstone Energy. Okay. This is 7 a six hundred co-ops across the country. And the lady 8 used to be an employee at Pedernales, her name is Ann 9 Harden. She said Bob I just want to congratulate you on 10 how great of a job y'all doing in your communication 11 efforts with your members. Okay. 12 Now they're not -- they're not down here 13 with their power off; they're watching as compared to 14 what we've done to where other places in the country 15 have done, we're doing great. I understand, I agree 16 with you, and we're to the point now, and this is my 17 opinion, that everybody wants to know about theirs. And 18 I can't tell individuals about theirs. 19 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Yeah. I was just 20 hoping that maybe y'all could -- 21 MR. LOTH: We're going to be able to do that 22 better very shortly. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Bob, one of the -- this 24 is just an observation that we like most people, so much 25 of this is going to report online, report on your phone. 29 1 Well, when you don't have power in the rural areas you 2 don't have phones and you don't online. That's what we 3 were hit with. So I mean and if you can't get off your 4 property very easily, there's a problem. And I don't 5 know how you solve that, but I know it's -- it's a 6 pretty big issue that you can't -- you can't communicate 7 and you're told to do it -- you're told -- you know I'm 8 on Bandera. And they say well use your phone app. 9 Well, great, but I don't have -- 10 MR. LOTH: And that goes what I was saying 11 about once we can get focused down, we're going to have 12 the ability to say if you live on this feeder, or you 13 live on this area, we can send a message out on that and 14 that says we have the three phase on and we'll be 15 working the taps, so that's an update. Okay. 16 And those people are going to see -- and 17 when you see the trucks then you know it's -- it's not 18 that much longer. It may be another day, it may be two 19 days, but we're getting there. 20 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Well, I would urge you 21 to get stuff out as quick as possible so that -- 22 MR. LOTH: I've done radio interviews. I 23 did one this morning. I did one with KERV. And I'm 24 more than willing to do that, and as we get closer and 25 know something that's relevant, I am absolutely willing 30 1 to do that. 2 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Well, and neighbors 3 can help neighbors. If they don't have internet, or you 4 know, I got my e-mail yesterday with my bill for the 5 last month. So I know we can get them out that way and 6 if neighbors get it they can share, call or what have 7 you. 8 MR. LOTH: I would like to find a 9 spokesperson in some little area to where if I could 10 call 20 people and know that they could help me get the 11 word out. You know the guy that's at the coffee shop in 12 Harper most everyday. I don't know who that is, I'm 13 halfway making that up. But if I've got his phone 14 number, I can put him on a communication list and send 15 something to him and he can help with that. 16 Or a lady, there was a grocery store up in 17 Cherokee. I don't know if y'all know where Cherokee is. 18 I mean as a example, she gets the word out in Cherokee. 19 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Well, I can tell you 20 right now is we've got a whole cluster of outstanding 21 volunteer fire departments that have been heroes through 22 all of this, and that's where a lot of information is 23 getting out. 24 MR. LOTH: That's a good -- and we can make 25 a focus to send updates to the fire departments, because 31 1 they can get the word out. That's a great idea. 2 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: The guys behind you 3 have been working welfare calls and everything through 4 all of this, even without electricity and water at their 5 own homes, you know. So that -- that's where people are 6 going. 7 MR. LOTH: That's a great idea. I will pass 8 that along. 9 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: One other thing. And 10 some people are scared out there. They've heard rumors 11 that I know, Mike, y'all came out and said there's not 12 going to be any of those highly inflated bills coming 13 out to your customers. And so people would like to hear 14 from you that, you know, these next few bills aren't 15 going to go through the roof as far as -- 16 MR. LOTH: I can't say for sure because I 17 wasn't there. Obviously they've been off for two weeks 18 then they didn't use anything. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 20 MR. LOTH: The ones that were in the rolling 21 brownouts, their bills are probably going to be higher. 22 Before the PUC got on the air the other night and 23 suggested that you not have penalties or that you work 24 with members with on deferred payment agreements. We 25 decided that last Wednesday. I mean we're here. We're 32 1 going to work with them. These are our neighbors, 2 they're our friends. We're not here to be hard with 3 anybody. We understand. We're going to do what we can 4 and to make it as amenable as we can. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On that follow-up on 6 that question, and I don't know, in areas of the State 7 you can pick and choose who you get your power from. 8 MR. LOTH: Yes, Sir. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: In our area for Bandera 10 Electric, you can't do that. You're in that co-op, you 11 do it. I presume it's the same here. 12 MR. LOTH: Yes, Sir. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My thought was those 14 high bills were coming because people were switching and 15 choosing, and maybe one company decided to raise their 16 rates. 17 MR. LOTH: They're going to get the worst of 18 it. Those ones that can choose are going to get the 19 worst of it. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. So what I'm 21 saying is that I never noticed that my bill fluctuates a 22 whole lot month to month. Does it fluctuate based on 23 what you're buying your power on? 24 MR. LOTH: It does. Well, I mean there's a 25 power pulse recovery factor in most utility bills. We 33 1 try to manage that. We try to keep it from bouncing. 2 And I think we do a pretty good job of that. And we're 3 a little bit -- what you -- what our term is over 4 collected right now. In other words we got a little in 5 reserve, so that we're not going to have to raise it. 6 We can use that reserve to offset it. It's less than a 7 million dollars, but it's close to a million dollars, 8 I'm not afraid to say how much it is. 9 So we've got some protection for the 10 customer. And you know, depending on how we come out of 11 this, if we get FEMA to pay for a whole bunch of this, 12 then we may be able to do something additional. If we 13 have to bear this whole thing, I don't think we're 14 looking at a rate increase; I think it's going to affect 15 our equity, you know, 30, 40, 50 million dollars is 16 going to hurt anybody's pocketbook. It will affect our 17 equities, but I don't see us -- I do not see an 18 additional financial burden coming to my to Central 19 Texas members, not mine. 20 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Does Central Texas get 21 any power from this alternative stuff? The solar and 22 the wind and the -- 23 MR. LOTH: We're buying ten percent -- 24 right now, we have -- our current contract is with CPS 25 Energy in San Antonio. And it ends the end of this year 34 1 and then we go a different direction. But we're buying 2 ten percent renewables. And I can tell you that when we 3 did that, and I mean -- 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Are you required to do 5 that? 6 MR. LOTH: I'm not required to, but it sure 7 makes me look better. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: With who? 9 MR. LOTH: With the people that think that 10 we should use totally renewable power. 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: It doesn't look any 12 better to me. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Me either. 14 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I don't think there's 15 any fans of that in Kerr County. 16 MR. LOTH: I don't think it's out of place 17 to say this, when we were evaluating -- when we first 18 got our estimate from them, or their bid to buy power 19 from them. I went back and it added -- to do ten 20 percent it added roughly a million to a million and a 21 half dollars a year. On 30 million dollars, that's 22 three percent, it's not a whole lot. And then if 23 somebody asked me how much are you buying, and I stand 24 here and say zero, then I've got a bunch of people, you 25 know, that aren't happy with me. 35 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Probably got more that 2 are happy than unhappy. 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Now if all your lines 4 were still good, you would have been down by ten percent 5 anyway. That would have been ten percent you couldn't 6 deliver, because that's all frozen up. Even if all your 7 lines are operable. 8 MR. LOTH: I'm not understanding the ten 9 percent. 10 COMMISSIONER BELEW: The ten percent of what 11 you deliver comes from alternative energy source, 12 renewable, whatever you want to call it. 13 MR. LOTH: No. It's not -- it's not a 14 flat -- I have a contract to deliver the power. What 15 they would have done in that instance is they would have 16 had to a deliver me power and then the next month they 17 probably would have sent me more renewable power. It 18 doesn't say that 90 percent comes and ten -- it's ten 19 percent per year. So they can do it in the summer, they 20 can do it -- I don't care how they do it. But I have a 21 contract that says my power's covered. 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: It's not a part of ten 23 percent of what you use? 24 MR. LOTH: No, Sir. No, Sir. 25 COMMISSIONER BELEW: That's good to know. 36 1 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I think -- I know we 2 got a couple other people here want to speak to 3 different -- to different matters here. And -- 4 JUDGE KELLY: I know you got certain time 5 constraints. We don't want to hold you over too long. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Gotta go put a three 7 phase up. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I want to thank you 9 because you did reach out to people. It was your 10 initiative, and Janice sending people e-mails saying 11 this man's available to be on the radio and do 12 interviews and let y'all know what's going on. 13 MR. LOTH: We're trying. 14 COMMISSIONER BELEW: It's good to take that 15 initiative. 16 MR. LOTH: We're trying. And it's a big 17 service territory, and we're trying. 18 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I appreciate you being 19 a standup guy and come in here and take some questions 20 and fade the heat. 21 MR. LOTH: And if you need me here next 22 week, if I can be here, I'll be here. I'm here as you 23 need me. I mean Mike can be my mouthpiece over here, I 24 can update. He's going to know what's going on. And he 25 can keep y'all updated. But until this is over with, 37 1 I'm available, and this is what I should be doing. 2 JUDGE KELLY: I've got Wayne Musgrove, 3 Sheryl Cardwell, Rusty Kimbrell, Brian Alexander, and 4 Charles Pope that want to speak. 5 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Come on up, Wayne. 6 MR. MUSGROVE: Here's my bill, and I've been 7 carrying it, and I haven't had a chance to get over to 8 Fredericksburg. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Hey, Wayne, is that 10 your bill, or is that your payment? 11 MR. LOTH: This was his payment to get 12 turned on early. 13 MR. MUSGROVE: My wife's been carrying it 14 around. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: He said bill. I just 16 wanted to make sure he was paying you. 17 I want to say thank you to this guy, and to 18 Mike, and also to Don. I'm 81 years old, and I've been 19 through a lot on the Gulf Coast with hurricanes and 20 power outages. I have COPD, so if I can't -- you can't 21 hear me, I'll try to do my best. 22 Anyway, these boys have done a wonderful 23 job, I'm going to tell you that. I mean I know 24 everybody in this room, and these guys are doing a 25 wonderful job. I called Don first, telling him my power 38 1 went out, it had been out 11 days. I turned around, no 2 more than I called him, then he must have called KPUB 3 because here comes KPUB with a truck -- two trucks, and 4 the guy's coming to my address. And I said no, no, it's 5 not here; it's the tap line, it's the feeder line got 6 down. 7 So I took him around and showed him all 8 these trees that were hanging over. And the ice is bad 9 on the lines, but these trees -- these big oak trees 10 that are growing over our right-of-way, and their 11 branches are hanging over the lines, when they go. 12 And the boy told me, we're KPUB. KPUB 13 wasn't even -- wasn't even in their area. They were 14 over in my area. And he said well a lot of these folks 15 don't want to cut these trees. I said well, it's 16 something else this Commission I think needs to address. 17 If a tree, regardless of where it is, is going to impact 18 the public if it falls, then the county's got a right to 19 cut it. 'Cuz I rely on oxygen -- 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We're looking at the 21 County Attorney. 22 MR. MUSGROVE: Sir? 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Looking at the County 24 Attorney. You said we have the right. I'm not sure we 25 have the right, Wayne. 39 1 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: We don't, but they do. 2 MRS. STEBBINS: I can look it up. Yes, Sir. 3 MR. MUSGROVE: You know, I'm low on oxygen, 4 and I have an oxygen measure in my house, and very 5 sensitive. It won't run on 58 cycles per second. It 6 won't run on 57 cycles per second. It won't run on 53 7 cycles per second. It takes 60 cycles, which is what 8 this guy delivered. 9 And I can't get oxygen. Well, I was down to 10 a half a bottle. And the VA came through for me, came 11 from San Antone. That's another thing. There's not a 12 place in this town that could refill my oxygen bottles. 13 Not the fire department, not the hospital, not anybody 14 that can refill a COPD patient's oxygen bottle. 15 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: You called me, and I 16 asked can I come get it, because I can go get you some. 17 MR. MUSGROVE: You can go get me a bottle, 18 but they're ain't nobody that can fill it. I think 19 that's terrible. We only have our volunteer fire 20 department, and we got wonderful volunteer fire 21 departments. 22 Dub was in here a while ago. I don't know 23 where Dub is. There he is right there. Dub, Code Red 24 called us. And a lot of folks don't understand that 25 when you turn the switch on you get a surge. And 40 1 everybody turns the switch on just like Bob said and 2 they suck -- it knocked it right out again. 3 Now, his Code Red was calling everybody and 4 says don't turn on all your power. Just turn on the 5 power that you need. Well, they don't understand that. 6 Y'all need to communicate with the folks out in the 7 woods like us, and let them know don't turn everything 8 on, just turn on what you need, because that puts a load 9 on Bob's grid. Knocked it right out again. As soon as 10 it up pulls it up, pulls it out again. 11 So from that perspective communication 12 robbed is the word. Every time I called Central Texas, 13 I got a recording. I never talked to a real person; I 14 talked to a computer. And they're telling me well, 15 we'll have your power up. Well, we get -- here in Texas 16 we can take care of ourself, but we gotta have good 17 information. 18 I got generators. I took my generators out 19 to my neighbors that didn't have generators. We shared 20 water. I got wells, but I can't get it up out of the 21 ground without power. I put my generators on. I 22 miscalculated the load, and I blew my generator out. 23 I'm going to buy me a bigger generator. 24 But the thing is, man, I cannot be critical 25 of Central Texas Electrical or KPUB. KPUB was there. 41 1 They went in there, it wasn't there coverage area, but 2 they were there for me. Now, you see these power poles, 3 they got guidewires on them. That guidewire will only 4 hold up so much weight. When one goes, that puts weight 5 on the next pole. Just like Bob said there's a domino 6 effect that takes place. 7 Some people don't want a guidewire on their 8 property, by golly. Sometimes you just gotta do it 9 anyhow because it protects the public. And this 10 Commission -- 11 (Phone call in background.) 12 MR. MUSGROVE: And I for one thank you. I 13 don't have more I want to say. Tom never sent anybody 14 into space that he didn't have backup for. I never sent 15 a ship to sea or a barge to sea that I didn't have 16 backup from the spared units and things that would go 17 out. They had two parts. 18 The only thing I can say to Bob is we need 19 to figure for a worse case scenario just like we do in 20 business. And he needs to have a stockpile of things 21 that normally go out when you have a crisis like this. 22 Other than that, all I can say is thank you 23 to all of you for stepping up. Larry Leitha, Chris, all 24 them guys, they were always there for everybody in this 25 County. And I'm for one as an old man appreciates it. 42 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Thanks, Wayne. 2 MR. MUSGROVE: Thanks for allowing me to 3 talk. 4 JUDGE KELLY: Next is Sheryl Cardwell. 5 MS. CARDWELL: Hi. I'm neighbors with the 6 Musgrove's. They live in the subdivision that we live 7 in. How many of you are members of Nextdoor tap 8 neighborhood? I'm the admin for the neighborhood out 9 there off 479, Broken Spur, Thrill Hill, Deer Run. 10 We've been hit pretty hard. 11 And I just wanted to tell y'all some of the 12 things that we've been talking about on Nextdoor. 13 They're all reeling from the effects from the storm of 14 course just like everyone else. But we've had no power, 15 no water, no cell service. And land lines have gone 16 down because of the trees and the ice. 17 Many of the people out there are scared, 18 angry, and some of them are at their wits end. I mean 19 mentally about to give up. A small part of us have a 20 well. There are several families that are on our well. 21 We do not have power. The people that are using that 22 water are from toddlers to the elderly. 23 My husband and I on one of the very cold 24 nights, I think we saw the transformer go. There was an 25 explosion, it was like fireworks. And since then our 43 1 water flowed to us through gravity flow until the tanks 2 ran out. Now, they're empty, we can't refill them 3 because of lack of power. We've been told that we need 4 a bucket truck and possibly a transformer. And that's 5 what we're waiting for, because that's all we know. 6 We don't know when. We don't know how long 7 we're going to have to wait. We can't shower, wash 8 dishes, wash clothes. We're using drinking water to 9 brush our teeth. We buy pastic or paper plates and 10 bowls, because it takes so much water to wash dishes. 11 We have to boil water to wash pots and pans. 12 We filled our bathtubs with water before the 13 storm -- I mean right after the storm started just to 14 flush toilets. That's gone. We filled ice chests with 15 ice and snow to flush toilets. That's almost gone. 16 Some of the people have had power restored 17 to their homes. We were only out five days. Some have 18 been 12 days. Little by little, we're getting our power 19 back. Maybe one house at a time, maybe more. But most 20 of us still do not have power out there. 21 The worse thing has been the lack of 22 information. I am a point person you can talk to, and I 23 can get the word out to everyone in that neighborhood 24 who is on Nextdoor. We share a lot of information, 25 sometimes misinformation, rumors, and that sets 44 1 everybody off. Just having information would make a 2 huge difference. 3 Now we have been told part of Broken Spur 4 will not be affected because it's up to LCRA to do it. 5 I don't know if that's -- 6 MR. LOTH: That doesn't sound accurate. 7 MS. CARDWELL: Okay, that's what we've been 8 told that you're waiting on LCRA to finish Broken Spur. 9 So I'll let them know that's not correct. 10 MR. LOTH: I don't believe that's correct. 11 I don't know how it would be. 12 MS. CARDWELL: Well, that's all I have. I 13 just wanted to let you know that I'm representing my 14 neighbors, and anybody can get information to me and 15 I'll pass it out to everybody I know. 16 MS. LOTH: I got a contact for you. 17 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: And that's just a 18 simple phone call idea. It's just the lack of 19 information. Give us some kind of time frame. 20 MS. CARDWELL: They wanted me to find out if 21 we're talking days, weeks. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: How many neighbors are 23 on your app there at the -- 24 MS. CARDWELL: I would say there's probably 25 a hundred on the app. There's way more than that in the 45 1 neighborhood. There's probably a couple hundred homes, 2 in the neighborhood. Because Thrill Hill is long, and a 3 lot of it's rural, and like small farms. Most of us 4 have five to ten acres so we're spread out, but we're 5 very close knit. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But it's an effective 7 way to communicate. 8 MS. CARDWELL: It's very effective. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Would additional 10 generators help some of people out there? 11 MS. CARDWELL: It would have been, yes. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Would it still? 13 MS. CARDWELL: We ran out of generators. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm just saying -- 15 MS. CARDWELL: Thanks to -- go ahead. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm just saying, we used 17 ours, but we're not using them after we got restored. 18 I'd be glad to loan it to someone. 19 MS. CARDWELL: And that's what we did. 20 Everyone gets on Nextdoor and says I'm out of firewood. 21 Boom, neighbor's bringing you firewood. I'm out of 22 water, they bring you water. I need a generator. 23 Everybody shared those until we ran out. 24 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Neighbors helping 25 neighbors. 46 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Don has my information. 2 He can get in touch. I mean we have one or two, I know, 3 generators we're not using right now. 4 MS. CARDWELL: And if you need my name and 5 phone number, I'll give it to you. 6 JUDGE KELLY: Thanks for coming in. 7 Next is Rusty Kimbrell. 8 MR. KIMBRELL: Hi. I'm Rusty Kimbrell. I'm 9 from West Kerr out in Mountain Home. And I'm not happy. 10 I'm not here to congratulate people. I'll start at the 11 top. The Governor of the State of Texas yesterday, just 12 yesterday was on Fox News, says Texas has its power 13 back. He's oblivious. Texas doesn't have its power 14 back. 15 And from what I've heard today, there are 16 people here that don't understand this is the time to 17 vent. It's not something that -- that this, you know, 18 this is great, we're going to get our local crews out 19 there, okay. And I am a 65 year old veteran of 20 hurricanes and tropical storms, and I've never waited 21 more than two weeks to get my power back. 22 I've got a ranch. I've got a lot of 23 animals, the ones that depend on the Good Lord for 24 water. The solar wells are getting their water. The 25 ones that depend on your electricity are not getting 47 1 anything unless I truck it to them. Okay. It's a time 2 to vent. 3 The way I understand it, the President 4 agreed to the Governor of the State back when he had the 5 correct information that we have a national disaster 6 declared. The way I understand that is, we have -- we 7 have resources. What I don't understand is why I-10 is 8 not clogged in both directions with power trucks, poles, 9 crews coming to fix this. This is the time to vent. 10 The one thing I can get across to people -- 11 and I know it's a time to vent but, you know, my 12 personal inconvenience is one thing. But I'm only here 13 right now because I can take care of myself; my animals 14 can't. They depend on us animal husbands to get out 15 there and take care of them. And we can't do it without 16 power. 17 What happens when hurricanes and tropical 18 storms come, is those trucks start lining up where they 19 can, and then they rush in there immediately. And 20 they -- a thousand poles down, 2000 poles down. That's 21 nothing compared to half a million on the coast of 22 Texas. You know, and they get that within two weeks 23 usually. 24 All of my -- all of my residences down 25 there that had lived there over 65 years got their power 48 1 back within two weeks. 2 So it's not something to congratulate each 3 other over, you know, whenever we're sitting and you're 4 telling me that it might be another week. There were 5 rumors out there that it might be April. I assume that 6 that's not true. If that's true -- why -- why aren't we 7 asking for the resources from the rest of this nation? 8 Every contiguous state in the nation -- the last time I 9 checked there hadn't been a hurricane in February. 10 Those crews and those trucks are sitting over there in 11 those other states and they're waiting on a phone call. 12 You've got the power of a national disaster declamation 13 and you got a cell phone. 14 And you can call and -- the way I understand 15 it, unless I'm wrong, you know, somebody from this 16 County oughta be telling the Governor of the State of 17 Texas he made a full of himself yesterday. 18 MR. MUSGROVE: He did that. 19 MR. KIMBRELL: And I don't think anybody 20 did. And somebody oughta be calling the Governor of the 21 State of Texas and say hey look, do what YOU can to get 22 these crews down here to help us. Because KPUB and CTEC 23 doing it by April is not good enough. 24 MR. LOTH: I have 25 outside contractors. I 25 have 158 outside people here. 49 1 MR. KIMBRELL: That doesn't impress me. 2 That doesn't impress me. I'm telling ya, I want to hear 3 a thousand. I want to hear whatever it takes to get 4 power back out here. 5 MR. LOTH: So do I. So do I. I'm trying to 6 do it efficiently, and most importantly safely. 7 MR. KIMBRELL: They do it safe. They do it 8 safe. That's what I'm asking you to do. 9 MR. LOTH: I'm not here to argue with you. 10 MR. KIMBRELL: I know. I'm asking you to 11 protect your employees by not overtaxing them and 12 getting them help, because they need help. And us 13 ranchers and the people out there that are still living 14 on generators and -- and you know, dumping water in 15 their commode. They need your help, too. That's all I 16 got. 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good point. Good 18 point. 19 JUDGE KELLY: Thank you Mr. Kimbrell. 20 Brian Alexander. 21 MR. ALEXANDER: Judge, I want to talk on 1.3 22 but I can enlighten them some. 23 If y'all need water, all you gotta do is 24 contact me at the fire department. I will try my best 25 to get y'all what you need. We have drinking water 50 1 there. We have some food. But bear with us, if you 2 need water for tanks for animals we will get it to you, 3 one way or the other. 4 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Do you have non potable 5 water for washing? 6 MR. ALEXANDER: Yes, we do. The problem 7 that we have is the cell phones are down and the land 8 lines are down and we can't let people know. The only 9 way we're going to is Facebook and when people are 10 coming to town or looking at Facebook. 11 We've been door to door, especially over in 12 your neighborhood. 13 MS. CARDWELL: I heard, they told me. 14 MR. ALEXANDER: I don't have enough manpower 15 to make sure everybody's alive. So I'll give you my 16 cell phone if you want it. 17 MR. MUSGROVE: I want to say something, 18 Brian, in support of this gentleman and this gentleman. 19 Brad Ryder was out and he was going around passing out 20 water and he went to her house, and went to Judy Berry's 21 house. Judy's got four horses. He brought them water. 22 I mean, this gentleman, Mr. Alexander at the 23 volunteer fire department, and did the same thing. And 24 she called him, we'll been there. 25 Now we got wonderful volunteer fire 51 1 departments. We're not using them, I don't think, like 2 we should be. And then this poor gentleman. I've been 3 through every hurricane on the Gulf Coast, that's come 4 in the Gulf. And we've had an army out there. We send 5 the army to other countries. We send them billions of 6 dollars, yet we don't take care of our own right here at 7 home. 8 Now, that's what our prior administrator was 9 trying to do, but he's no longer in there, so now we got 10 another guy in there. But I'm going to tell you men and 11 women, we got to take care of our folks. And we're not 12 doing it. We're taking care of everybody else. 13 And Jack just showed me a picture on his 14 phone. There must be 60 dead deer right there. There's 15 no food and no water source, besides his truck. 16 JUDGE KELLY: The last person I got on my 17 list is Charles Holt. Are you going to speak on 1.3 18 also? 19 MR. HOLT: Yes, Sir, 1.3. 20 JUDGE KELLY: Well, we'll come back to y'all 21 then on that. Is there anything else then on item 1.1? 22 Let me share some information with you on 23 this. And those of you that have not seen or attended 24 Governor Dan Patrick's presentation he made at the 25 Second Baptist Church on Sunday. Go to his website and 52 1 watch it. Very very informative. 2 MR. MUSGROVE: We don't have service out 3 there in the woods. 4 JUDGE KELLY: Well, I'm talking to the 5 public. He was very enlightening, talked about what our 6 problems are with regards to electrical capacity. He 7 gave us some numbers that the capacity in Texas, ERCOT, 8 was 73,000 megawatts. 9 And when the storm hit Sunday night, he says 10 that they immediately hit 69,000 megawatts of usage. 11 And that's when ERCOT called in. They start the -- the 12 rolling blackouts. And they have them cut it back to 13 50,000. So one-third of our power capacity that we had 14 was unused in order to protect the grid, because if the 15 grid goes down they didn't think they could get it back 16 up. It was just refreshing to hear a politician explain 17 to us exactly what they did and why. 18 The other thing that he talked about that I 19 think is very important for us, and taken in this time 20 of disaster, and that is that our power plants were not 21 sufficiently weatherized, winterized. And the way it's 22 been for the last ten years, he said. And it's been 23 good for the last ten years but it failed us this time. 24 And they had a recent report every year from ERCOT on 25 whether or not they have sufficiently winterized our 53 1 power plants. And they have a fresh new report that 2 came out just a month or so ago that we were supposed to 3 be adequately winterized for these plants. And we were 4 not. 5 And so what the Lieutenant Governor is 6 saying that's going to make it a legislative priority to 7 address the capacity issues and to address the 8 winterization issues, and in this legislative session. 9 And the other thing that he said in that 10 presentation is that with regard to these adjustable 11 rates, and what it's going to do to our bills, that he 12 and the Governor are already working on a solution to 13 try to help utility users and payers not get hit too 14 hard with these bills. And he's made this a legislative 15 priority for this legislative session that we're 16 presently in. 17 So I was happy to see a statewide politician 18 step forward and accept the responsibility that we're 19 going to get out of this thing. And so as bad as it is 20 we are in a state of disaster. As bad as it is we're 21 going to get out of this thing, and we'll do it from the 22 State on down. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, before you go to 24 the next one, I don't know -- but I want to comment, 25 it'll just take a second here, 1.3. But I talked 54 1 with -- I know I've got a lot of calls from people that 2 are served by AQUA Texas about their water situations. 3 And I talked with general manager before the meeting, 4 and as of now, or at least earlier today, they'll send 5 out notices, all of Texas Aqua Texas water systems are 6 now drinkable, except three in Kerr County. And that's 7 Saddlewood, and Guadalupe Heights, and -- I can't even 8 read my writing. Horseshoe Oaks. And those three, 9 they're waiting on the water quality test to come back 10 and they should be back online for those three. 11 But everything else from AQUA Texas is up 12 and running in County. I just wanted to pass that on, 13 because I've had several e-mails today about that. 14 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Been a lack of 15 communication there as well. People not getting the 16 word out to people of what they were faced for the 17 length of time without. You know, a lot of people that 18 was in that group. Just wondering. 19 JUDGE KELLY: Let's move on through the 20 agenda. I'm to go skip over 1.2 because that's an 21 action that we can take once all the people that come 22 talk to want to share with us. 23 So let's go on to 1.3 consider, discuss 24 emergency assistance for Kerr County residents who have 25 been impacted by this winter weather event. And this is 55 1 Dub Thomas. 2 MR. THOMAS: Good afternoon, Judge. Good 3 afternoon, Commissioners. I want to talk a little bit 4 about the FEMA assistance that's available to folks in 5 the public and to the County itself. 6 So February the 12th Governor Abbott issued 7 a Disaster Declaration for the entire State of Texas 8 ahead of this weather event. And he requested both 9 Public Assistance and Individual Assistance for all 254 10 counties. 11 FEMA, once the Declaration was approved, 12 decided that there were only going to be 77 counties 13 originally that would be given both Public Assistance 14 and Individual Assistance. And Kerr County was one -- 15 one of several that did not get included in Individual 16 Assistance. 17 So yesterday -- there's been several 18 recovery conference calls, and the easiest way for Kerr 19 County to be included in the Individual Assistance is 20 for folks to access what we call, it's a chart. It's a 21 website for FEMA, it's basically a survey that will 22 allow the State and the Federal Government to see that 23 we do have individual homes damaged here in Kerr County. 24 And the more of those that we get -- individual homes 25 and businesses, by the way. 56 1 The more of those that we get into that 2 survey and the Federal Government sees that we have 3 significant number of homes and businesses damaged then 4 we should be included in the Individual Assistance. So 5 what I've done is we put that website out on our Kerr 6 County Facebook Page yesterday. It's also on the 7 website. There's also a QR code that can be accessed 8 from your phone if you want to complete the survey that 9 way. 10 So the Public Assistance part, I'll kind of 11 give everybody a little bit of facts about what the 12 Public Assistance is for. So Kerr County's already been 13 approved for Public Assistance, but there's several 14 categories when it comes to Public Assistance. 15 There's Category A, which is debris removal. 16 Category B, emergency protective measures. C is roads 17 and bridges. D is water control facilities. E is 18 public building and contents. F is public utilities. 19 And then G, parks, recreational, and other facilities. 20 So currently under the Public Assistance 21 Declaration that we are under, so far it's only for 22 emergency protective measures, which is Category B. So 23 that basically involves reimbursement for the cost to 24 run congregate shelters, some emergency damage repairs 25 would be included in that. Overtime for individuals 57 1 like the Sheriff's Department folks that worked overtime 2 working the highways and stuff like that. 3 So we're working on those right now. We're 4 trying to make up to our county threshold, which 5 increased as of last year. It is now $187,583.00. So 6 once we get into over that $187,000.00, which I'm pretty 7 sure we're going to match, we're going to make it pretty 8 easy. We should be able to get assistance for all the 9 other categories, debris removal, roads and bridges, 10 water control facilities, and all those other 11 categories. 12 So on individual side, the Individual 13 Assistance, just some of the things that individuals can 14 be reimbursed for. Homeowners and renters in officially 15 designated counties that sustained damage to their 16 homes, vehicles, personal property, businesses or 17 inventory may apply for disaster assistance. 18 This assistance can include grants to help 19 pay for temporary housing, emergency home repairs, 20 uninsured and under insured personal property, losses, 21 medical, dental, funeral expenses caused by the 22 disaster, along with some other serious disaster related 23 expenses. 24 That Disaster Assistance is not taxable 25 income, and will not affect their eligibility for social 58 1 security, Medicaid or Medicare. So what I'm asking 2 everybody to do now is if you had some type of damage to 3 your home or your business, whether it was a water line 4 that broke and you've had to pull out sheetrock, your 5 carpet's all wet, please take pictures of those. 6 Document it anyway you can, and go online and fill out 7 that survey. And that will get -- I'm pretty sure Kerr 8 County will get bumped up into the Individual 9 Assistance. 10 It started out with 77 counties. 31 more 11 were added yesterday. So more of those surveys we get 12 in, and I can monitor that everyday on the EOC and see 13 what's been submitted. 14 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Yeah, will you keep us 15 updated on that. And again Dub, that's on the County 16 web page that's posted. Facebook page for the County. 17 I know I put it on mine last night, I think, and all the 18 forms are accessed on either of those sources. 19 MR. THOMAS: Yeah, I've got it right here. 20 it's https://arcg.is/uOrOb. And go to that website and 21 you fill out the survey. It's going to ask you several 22 questions. Most of it's drop down boxes, you can fill 23 in what type of damage you had. And you need to put in 24 a dollar estimate. Just your best guesstimate on your 25 dollar damages whether or not you've had a contractor 59 1 come out and look at it, doesn't matter. Just whatever 2 you think that dollar estimate is. If you got pictures, 3 you can upload those pictures in there so that 4 somebody's actually seeing the documentation. 5 My concern is at this point, we have a large 6 population here in Kerr County that does not have access 7 to the internet, they don't have cell phones. So I'm 8 trying to get somebody to give me confirmation yay or 9 nay whether or not those pictures are absolutely 10 necessary. Because if they're not absolutely necessary, 11 I want to be able to use the call center and the 12 information center that we have over that we can access 13 that website and we can do the survey for those folks. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Dub, can you include on 15 that property damage like trees that are down or brush, 16 or is it only to structures? 17 MR. THOMAS: No. It's only to the 18 structure. Now, we do have access to debris removal 19 under Public Assistance if we get that approved, but we 20 just gotta get to that threshold. And everything that 21 I've seen talking to all the power companies and the 22 water companies, we're going to make our threshold, 23 that's not going to be a problem. 24 MRS. STEBBINS: If you get that information 25 out to surrounding churches, I bet that they can help 60 1 get that to the folks that they know in their 2 congregations that need help and -- 3 MR. THOMAS: We're trying to access the 4 ministerial lines or ministerial groups and see if they 5 can't help us out with that. 6 MRS. STEBBINS: Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I'm having a hard time 8 understanding why I just don't tell my own insurance 9 company. I don't get that. 10 MR. THOMAS: Well, that's go to be one of 11 the things that they're going to ask you on that 12 questionnaire, on that survey, are you insured. The 13 first thing that's going to happen is your insurance is 14 going to have to take care of your property. So FEMA 15 will reimburse -- will pay you for what was not covered 16 by insurance, whatever your insurance didn't cover. 17 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Does that include 18 deductible? 19 MR. THOMAS: Yes, Sir. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Do they pay for it, or 21 do they give you a loan? 22 MR. THOMAS: No. Once we get the Individual 23 Assistance Declaration, if somebody has a property 24 that's been damaged, we'll give them a website, another 25 website, another phone number that they can go to 61 1 register with FEMA. And FEMA will tell them at that 2 time whether or not they are eligible or not. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: To be reimbursed, or 4 for a loan, or both? 5 MR. THOMAS: For reimbursement. Actually 6 it's direct payment, so -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They write you a check 8 on the spot. At least they used to. 9 MR. THOMAS: Yeah. In fact it's already 10 happened. I heard yesterday over a conference call that 11 somebody's going to get six thousand dollars to pay for 12 their damages. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Wow. Welcome to 14 socialism. 15 MR. THOMAS: So going to -- they'll register 16 on the FEMA website. They'll be contacted by FEMA, and 17 what they do now is instead of a damage assessment team 18 coming out, following COVID protocols and everything, 19 they do a visual. Get on your cell phone and walk 20 around the house and you show them your damage. 21 COMMISSIONER BELEW: The last thing I'm 22 going to do. Not going to happen in my house. They've 23 seen the roof. 24 MR. THOMAS: So just kind of fill everybody 25 in on some of the things that are going on as far as the 62 1 recovery part of this. 2 (Commissioner Moser exiting courtroom.) 3 MR. THOMAS: We are working on our DSO. 4 Hopefully we'll have some of that submitted this week. 5 There's only been 87 DSO's submitted statewide. Our DSO 6 when we reach our threshold it helps the State reach 7 their threshold, so we're trying to get all that 8 information submitted. 9 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: DSO again for the 10 people watching. 11 MR. THOMAS: Standard Disaster Summary 12 Outline. And they've asked us to concentrate on schools 13 probably because they were mostly used for shelters, and 14 electrical co-ops. So we've had all those here, so I 15 still gotta make some phone calls to some others. 16 Bandera Electric gave me a rough draft yesterday of what 17 their expenses were. And I just talked to CTEC, still 18 need to talk to Lower Colorado River Authority, all of 19 the water companies. AQUA, as well. So I'm fairly 20 confident -- actually I'm pretty confident we're going 21 to make our threshold. 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Which was 187. 23 MR. THOMAS: $187,000.00. So that's what 24 your total expenses are, minus insurance. But one of 25 our electric companies has already thrown us over the 63 1 threshold. 2 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, is there an 3 indication of why this number of 254 counties got 4 reduced to 77? 5 MR. THOMAS: No. That's a FEMA thing. I 6 don't have any clue what FEMA did. The only thing I can 7 surmise is number one it's either a largely populated 8 area, or they've got a past history of individuals 9 needing individual assistance. 10 JUDGE KELLY: Well, my impression of why I 11 think they knocked it down is the disaster order that 12 the signed is for all 254 counties. And what they're 13 doing is starting up slowly. They started with 77, 14 added 31 yesterday. I don't know what they've added 15 today. But I know counties all over the State are 16 turning in their Disaster Declaration to get on board. 17 MR. THOMAS: Yes, Sir. So some of the other 18 things we're doing, you know, a couple weeks go I talked 19 about an order for a STAR request for 20 pallets of 20 water. The State was also sending out 254 trucks. One 21 to each -- well, they were sending trucks to each County 22 with food and water. 23 I received 38 pallets of MRE's today. I 24 have 21,880 meals for out of that. And I should be 25 getting -- should already have a load of water in today. 64 1 So we're trying to distribute that to the volunteer fire 2 departments to use those as pods, especially out in the 3 remote areas of the county for folks who don't have to 4 come so far to get it. We've got it at the Youth Event 5 Center now and we're already starting to divvy that up. 6 And I have additional supplies from Red Cross, cleanup 7 kits and some more HeaterMeals or MRE's. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: And San Antonio Food 9 Bank set up at the Methodist Encampment this week. Do 10 you coordinate any of that with them? 11 MR. THOMAS: Dub we actually use First 12 Methodist Church as a shelter. And a lot of the food 13 that comes from -- that Light on the Hill, or Mustard 14 Seed Ministries, does come from the food bank, yes, Sir. 15 JUDGE KELLY: Anything else for Dub? We 16 have some people that want to talk on this subject. I 17 know Brian. 18 MR. ALEXANDER: So I only have three 19 minutes, right? I have a couple questions. I haven't 20 been able to talk to Larry yet. But one of the things I 21 want to ask is why we haven't set up an EOC last week? 22 We should have had one set up last week. 23 There was two outside counties that already 24 had there's set up. Why didn't we have one? 25 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Isn't that a question 65 1 for Dub. 2 MR. ALEXANDER: Well, he just walked out. 3 Also -- I guess I'll wait for him to come back in. The 4 other thing is we're trying to talk about paying back 5 with overtime and all that. We need to address what's 6 going on in Mountain Home. All right. I've had two 7 other -- I've had water come from Comfort, that was 8 given to us. And then we went to Harper Sunday and got 9 water and food there. 10 We have not gotten any help from Kerr 11 County, so we need to come up with something. We 12 gave -- had 76 people show up yesterday for food and 13 water. We ran 106 calls last year. As of Sunday we've 14 already done over 200 calls since this thing began. 15 We've run ragged, all right. 16 And the biggest problem that we have is we 17 cannot get everybody. I mean there's just no way. The 18 Sheriff's Department's done a lot, we've done a lot, 19 other volunteers have done a lot. But one of the things 20 is that we ran across was that I want to bring to y'all 21 that probably could be a simple fix maybe, is our 22 repeaters went down, our communications. All right. 23 I was the smart one that ran out to our 24 repeater out west and threw a generator on it. Our 25 biggest problem that we have out west is communications, 66 1 right? Why can't we get these cell phone providers to 2 go out and set up generators so they can communicate? 3 Right? I mean we know we're not going to get -- it 4 doesn't matter, I mean not for us. Why can't we get 5 ahold of the cell phone providers and say look, I mean 6 there's emergencies going on that people can't get ahold 7 of us. What are we going to do? 8 And I understand that the majority of the 9 County is safe right now, but we still have the far west 10 end of the County that's not. So we need to come up 11 with something, you know. AT&T is not the only one that 12 hit and miss out there. The rest of the cell phone 13 providers do not workbecause there's no electricity. So 14 can we get ahold of those cell phone providers and ask 15 them to put generators out there? Can we get 16 somebody -- what can we do? Do y'all have an answer? 17 COMMISSIONER BELEW: It doesn't hurt to ask. 18 MR. ALEXANDER: I'm telling you for 13 days 19 I've been without electricity and my mind has been going 20 ticking and that's the first thing I thought of last 21 night, why don't we put generators at cell phone towers 22 to make them work. 23 Because for one, everybody is running ragged 24 trying to check on people because they don't have anyway 25 to communicate, land lines are down, cell phones are 67 1 down, you know. 2 COMMISSIONER BELEW: It will be an issue of 3 money of course. 4 MR. ALEXANDER: Well, if we're -- 5 COMMISSIONER BELEW: And we'll probably have 6 to raise it ourselves. Let me ask you a question about 7 you said Kerr County provided nothing. Who did you 8 contact or ask? 9 MR. ALEXANDER: The first time I talked to 10 anybody is Saturday. And Don was the one that called me 11 and we talked a little bit, and then Dub called me. 12 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Did you let anybody 13 know you needed food and water? 14 MR. ALEXANDER: We didn't -- until the snow 15 let up, we didn't know what we needed, okay. 16 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, you gotta let -- 17 did you contact the CERT people? 18 MR. ALEXANDER: Dub just did the other day, 19 all right. So -- 20 COMMISSIONER BELEW: That's what they're 21 here for to -- 22 MR. ALEXANDER: You know what we have an 23 emergency coordinator, that's his job. Okay. Whenever 24 I'm running that many calls, taking care of people, 25 there's a lot of stuff that gets behind. So we have an 68 1 emergency coordinator that does that, right. So that's 2 why I'm asking. 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, it's a two-way 4 deal though. I mean if you say we need water here and 5 food over there, and turn that request over to Dub, it 6 really is his job as you say to make sure that stuff 7 happens. The wheel keeps turning and the line of 8 communication has to stay open. It works both ways. 9 But he's not going to know that somebody needs water 10 over here -- 11 MR. ALEXANDER: If we had the EOC opened up, 12 it should have been already done. Because other 13 counties that are right around us that's exactly what 14 they did. The fire chiefs didn't have to coordinate 15 nothing, it was already done. So -- so I mean as far as 16 I know Saturday was when he placed an order on water, 17 right, and he just got it today. We already have other 18 counties that got it. So my curiosity is when did they 19 order. 20 But I mean, I think we need to do something 21 now. I mean we have a water problem. We're trying as 22 best as we can, you know. We almost had a fuel problem. 23 I tried to contact Don during the middle of the week but 24 his cell phone was down because everybody else was down 25 to try to figure out what we're going to do about fuel. 69 1 Luckily we had enough to go on. 2 Dub contacted me about the little hospital 3 that we have there for the kids on respirators. They 4 needed fuel, we took care of it out of our pocket, okay. 5 We gave people firewood, we've given people gas to keep 6 generators going. So somewhere along we need to start 7 getting y'all to help figure out what we're going to do. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Probably all need to 9 sit down after this and see where the problems were. 10 MR. ALEXANDER: I agree. 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: What didn't get done. 12 What worked well. Emphasize the stuff and reenforce the 13 stuff that worked well. 14 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Well, I've been trying 15 to tell everybody is we need to do that right now. We 16 gotta get things fixed. There's too many people right 17 here without electricity and water. These guys -- these 18 volunteers, many of them without electricity and water 19 at their house and they're out there making welfare 20 calls and stuff. And like I said they're our heroes. 21 We need to get things fixed, then we can 22 start saying yeah, we could have done a better job here 23 and there. And get down to the nitty gritty. But right 24 now, we need to get these guys whatever they need. 25 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, a lot of it's. 70 1 Availability. I went looking for water for a family out 2 in West Kerr County today. Couldn't find it. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Dub just said they have 4 meals and water that just came in today at the AG barn. 5 We just need to figure out how to get it out to Mountain 6 Home Volunteer Fire Department and probably Divide, 7 and -- 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Yeah, but it's not just 9 let the professionals do it. Each one of us. Everybody 10 that knows somebody can help. And that's what I'm 11 talking about. 12 MR. ALEXANDER: So kind of what I started 13 doing when all this stuff was going on, like I'm going 14 to throw Thrill Hill in the mix. I ended up finally 15 getting with one person and say look why don't you take 16 care of that road, okay. So it made it easier on me. 17 Okay. That person made contact. 18 When we made up chili for everybody up one 19 day, I took it to that person and said here, you 20 distribute it out to that neighborhood, which helped out 21 a lot. 22 Like I said, our biggest problem is there's 23 no way to contact anybody, you know. The most 24 aggravating part is the people that just left. We're 25 doing welfare checks and they just left. We're beating 71 1 on the doors, trying to figure out where they're at. 2 There's cars there, but they had somebody with a pickup 3 truck come and get them. It's very aggravating. 4 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: You're saving their 5 life. 6 MR. ALEXANDER: Yes. I mean there's people 7 that -- and the Sheriff can agree to this, there's 8 people that we don't even know. And so like I said, 9 that's where I thought about it if there's anyway we 10 could get generators somehow someway on some of these 11 cell phone towers, then people can call and say I'm 12 okay, I'm all right. 13 His dispatch has probably gotten millions of 14 calls that come in at the middle of the night, to where 15 we're having to go check up on people. Like why didn't 16 you call during the day, you know. 17 MR. MUSGROVE: I got something. A lot of us 18 out there in the community has got fuel and water. My 19 well is into the river, I get 36 gallons a minute. And 20 fortunately to get it, I got four hundred gallons of 21 diesel, it's red diesel, but it's in my -- it's at my 22 place. I got a tank, another four hundred gallon tank, 23 that I got it set up with gasoline. But I never bought 24 any gasoline so it's empty. But, if I had it in there, 25 it would be available for the communities out here, 72 1 agriculture people that's got this stuff out there. And 2 I for one would be glrad to serve our community with my 3 diesel and my gas. But we need some spot, some central 4 spot that we can report in. It's like I called the 5 Mountain Home Fire Department, and said I had a stock 6 pond that I'd calculated about 68 thousand gallons of 7 water in it when it's full. If you need water out here, 8 they got pump trunks, pump it out and go put a fire out 9 out there. And in a central place. 10 MR. ALEXANDER: I gotta rephrase a little 11 bit. I don't think anybody in Mountain Home, especially 12 the ones in Hunt, they're not asking for freebees, okay. 13 If we had a fuel truck out there, I mean look at -- if 14 y'all had to go get fuel last week, how hard it was. 15 For them to waste their fuel to come all the way into 16 town and to be bummed out that they can't get fuel. 17 That would have helped out. 18 I mean I'm pretty sure that there's plenty 19 of people that would pay to have fule, propane. Propane 20 was another issue that we had. And I agree with Don. I 21 think later on we need to sit down and come up with some 22 better things. But now's the issue. 23 But the biggest issue is how do we contact 24 them. I guarantee you we can probably get the Sheriff's 25 Department, every VFD involved and we will not cover it 73 1 in one week out there. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Brian, do you have any 3 idea what size generator it takes to get these cell 4 towers operational? I mean -- that would be first 5 thing. Because the generators are probably somewhere -- 6 I mean I would think they're just huge. 7 MR. ALEXANDER: Yeah. That's a good 8 question. I mean the one that -- for our radio repeater 9 which would be far gone west in Menard. I just have a 10 little 3500. It don't take much. 11 MR. MUSGROVE: 50 KW will run a drilling 12 rig. 13 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Yeah. What we have 14 here that runs the courthouse, you don't need something 15 that big. But it'll depend on useage and the amount 16 of -- you know it's going to be a formula. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But I'm saying a 18 cell tower, I am thinking would not be that much just to 19 get power up. I mean I have no idea. But that would be 20 the first step, because communication, I agree with you, 21 the communication through this whole thing has been to 22 me the biggest problem. 23 MR. ALEXANDER: It is. It's very hard. I 24 mean you can't call land line. And some people just 25 don't understand, why can't you just drive. I mean -- 74 1 you'd be amazed at how many people couldn't get out. 2 And we didn't want them to come out, believe me. The 3 first two nights or first two ice days we ran over 40 4 calls on the interstate. I mean, we don't want them to 5 come out, but I think we need to focus on somehow figure 6 out communication, you know. Somebody brought up CODE 7 RED. Well, you know what, the CODE RED is great when 8 the land line is working, or the cell phone. It doesn't 9 work. 10 The NextDoor deal, I'm going to talk to her 11 about it. We've talked about trying to do something, 12 but it's the same problem. If they don't have cell 13 phone service, they don't. And he made a good comment, 14 neighbors being neighbors. I mean neighbors need to 15 check on each other. 16 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Without a doubt. 17 MR. ALEXANDER: Like I said, we need to 18 figure out somehow for communication. I don't know if 19 we can put a little bit of twist on the cell phone 20 providers to make them? I mean, I don't know. 21 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: You might say want to. 22 MR. ALEXANDER: I can tell you right now 23 when it comes to Hill Country Telephone, if you don't 24 have electricity, their stuff's not going to work. So I 25 think we need to try to push more to the cell towers 75 1 than anything. 2 So -- because I can say there's a lot of us 3 if it wasn't for our repeater towers there was no 4 communication. It was very aggravating. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And there's two issues 6 you brought up. One, is there anyway to get it up ASAP, 7 and then go to the companies and see what it would cost, 8 or if they would be willing to put generators on these 9 locations. 10 MR. ALEXANDER: You know, I'm dealing 11 with -- Dub has helped me get through tough paperwork 12 for STAR's, and so we as a matter of fact here probably 13 in the next hour, we'll have a 50 watt generator there 14 at the station. 15 I know it's pretty hard right now, but may 16 try to get more from them. I don't know if they'll do 17 it or not. But I mean somewhere along the line -- 18 (Commissioner Letz exiting courtroom.) 19 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Yeah. I took a -- I 20 think a 6250 out to Divide yesterday. And there was 21 another one, Dub, at the disaster people where you told 22 me to get that generator. And it had a broken part 23 right there, and so it's useless, when we tried to start 24 it. And I don't know how long it takes to get any of 25 the parts, but there's some generators out there, and 76 1 they're supposed to be getting another one in. And 2 somebody was bringing one back in. They borrowed it 3 awhile and didn't need it anymore. So we'll keep an eye 4 on them. And you're in contact with them, Dub. If they 5 get one in, let me know. 6 MR. THOMAS: Sure. 7 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: We'll try to get it 8 where it can be used. 9 MR. ALEXANDER: So Dub, my first question 10 was to do a EOC. Why couldn't you have done one earlier 11 on? Like last week. To maybe get things more 12 coordinated. 13 MR. THOMAS: We had an open -- but we 14 couldn't even get in the EOC, so -- 15 JUDGE KELLY: Come up to the microphone. 16 MR. THOMAS: So it was mostly about getting 17 shelters open at the time. But I will say that 18 communication is in any disaster, whether it's a large 19 disaster or small disaster, is always an issue. And 20 particularly in this one, you know, West Central 21 Wireless went down. AT&T as far as my FirstNet that I 22 am on which is your first responders, police -- 23 MR. ALEXANDER: Worked great. 24 MR. THOMAS: Worked great. And I talked to 25 the Sheriff about it a little bit, because that's 77 1 probably something that we need to take a look at. But 2 I never had an issue AT&T FirstNet. 3 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I did. But that's 4 just me using it. 5 MRS. STEBBINS: Y'all don't leave. We gotta 6 have three, guys. 7 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I'll be right here. 8 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I never even tried 9 mine. It didn't -- 10 MR. ALEXANDER: That's okay. Cell phones 11 went down for a lot of people. And I don't know -- I 12 don't know what we can do about that for the future. 13 It's something I think we need to sit down and talk 14 about. 15 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Exactly. And while 16 people are watching this, and that's what we -- I want 17 to stress as much as anything, share this information. 18 And just a little bit of information just makes 19 somebody's day that's been isolated that may not have 20 internet, may not have cell phone service. You can 21 check on that person, or even call them. Even if they 22 have cell service but don't have internet or something. 23 Share what you learned today from CTEC and KPUB and 24 everybody else. That means a bunch to them. Not 25 knowing, not knowing is a big element in this whole deal 78 1 for people, and work on them. 2 I mean that's 57 percent of my calls is 3 that. They can deal with being without stuff, but not 4 knowing. Somebody's saying it's going to be two weeks, 5 or two days or whatever. That means a bunch. And the 6 rumors start, you know, sometime in April or something 7 like that. You know, and then it just spreads, or 8 you're going to get a two thousand dollar electric bill. 9 Those rumors were out there, and stuff like that. 10 MR. ALEXANDER: Well, all people gotta do -- 11 I'm serious, I told the newspaper people yesterday, that 12 I-10 and 41, and drive down 41 and go no more than four 13 miles, and you'll see the damages just like that. 14 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Bingo. 15 MR. ALEXANDER: Kudos to Central Texas. 16 They are trying their best. I'm in the same boat as 17 everybody else. I haven't had electricity for 13 days. 18 No water, no nothing, all right. So I'm in the same 19 boat as them. I'm doing the same thing. 20 But when you go out and you look at it and 21 see how much damage it is, it make sense. It's not an 22 overnight deal. It's just not. 23 But Judge, on back to what I was saying, 24 will somebody maybe check with phone companies? Maybe I 25 need an answer will somebody do it, to see if we can get 79 1 with the phone providers and maybe twist them and maybe 2 put generators out or -- can somebody do that? 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I'll do that. 4 MR. ALEXANDER: Okay. I know Verizon, and 5 Five Star, and West Central. Y'all have anything you 6 want to ask me? 7 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Hill Country Telephone 8 work? 9 MR. ALEXANDER: No. Unless you have 10 electricity, it won't work, especially with all the 11 fiberoptics. 12 MRS. STEBBINS: If people in the community 13 want to help, how do they reach you? 14 MR. ALEXANDER: They can call my cell phone. 15 830-377-3624. 16 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Repeat it one more 17 time. 18 MR. ALEXANDER: 830-377-3624. My phone's 19 already lit up. If I had a penny for every call. 20 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I was there yesterday, 21 and it looks like y'all have a good amount of bottled 22 water yet, and you still had some of the buckets of -- 23 five gallon buckets from the breweries. 24 MR. ALEXANDER: Yeah. I almost forget. The 25 Kerrville Fire Department came up the first day after 80 1 the snow and they brought us a hundred and something 2 buckets of water. That helped out for right then and 3 there. That helped out. 4 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: And I don't know how 5 long this is going to drag out. And you know I talked 6 to you about that -- the pig deal op. I'll buy some, 7 but if -- 8 MR. ALEXANDER: The problem is 9 refrigeration. 10 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: They have to go 11 straight on the pit and start them. 12 MR. ALEXANDER: Well, the majority of us all 13 are prepared. We all have a lot of meat. But if the 14 generator goes down. I mean there's lots of play in all 15 this. Like me personally, I've already used seven 16 hundred dollars of fuel in to running dinners. I mean 17 that's a lot of money. 18 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Yeah, it is. 19 JUDGE KELLY: We need to get back on agenda 20 here. I've had this one lady that's been on the line 21 for 50 minutes. 22 Charles, go ahead because you're on the 23 list. 24 MR. HOLT: I just want to reiterate on some 25 of the stuff like the EOC and everything. I think it's 81 1 important in our area. I mean we were kind of left out 2 in the dark even with requested things. But my phone 3 was down. All this stuff we tried to do was over the 4 radio through the Sheriff's Office. There was a lot of 5 places in our area that I mean you couldn't get through 6 that ice. We were running patients through ambulances, 7 picking them up. 8 We ran about a hundred calls in six days. 9 We've given out 275 cases of water. We put out about 24 10 thousand gallons of nonpotable water to people, six 11 cords of firewood. I mean we manned our station for 12 seven or eight days. 13 Some of the stuff is that I've got today is 14 to first tell everybody my cell phone number, which is 15 830-377-2420. 830-377-2420. If you need anything from 16 us, call us. Or call the fire station on Facebook, like 17 it. But there's a lot of people that are not able to 18 get things and we're doing the best that we can. The 19 volunteer firemen and everything trying to get things to 20 help each other. So like I said with that, we're just 21 trying to do the best we can. 22 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: If you don't know this 23 is Charles Holt with Center Point. 24 MR. HOLT: Yes, I'm the Fire Chief over 25 there. And the biggest rumor that people are thinking 82 1 is like man, I bet you got some good overtime this week. 2 (Laughter.) 3 MR. HOLT: And they were surprised to know 4 that we've been putting in 18 hours a day with no pay. 5 So -- 6 COMMISSIONER BELEW: You didn't get a pay 7 cut. 8 MR. HOLT: Right. So that's the next thing 9 I came here for. Through all this hardship with COVID 10 and everything, everybody's trying to do whatever they 11 can. Donate to your volunteer fire departments. They 12 need it. There's a lot of stuff we need to do. 13 But also -- came here to also -- we're also 14 having our ESD meeting March the 6th at the cafeteria at 15 Center Point at six p.m. So whoever can make please 16 attend that meeting. 17 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: The school cafeteria? 18 MR. HOLT: Yes. 19 COMMISSIONER BELEW: What's the date again? 20 MR. HOLT: It's March the 6th at six p.m. I 21 would also like to thank a few people while I'm here if 22 you don't mind. Mini Mart, they helped fill up my 23 trucks before they opened. They were almost empty. 24 Neu-Mart, they were open taking cash. Doing the best 25 they can. C-A-L Feed opened up to give me chain so I 83 1 could build snow chains for my pickup to be able to pick 2 people up. Harry Holt from Integrity Waste Services, he 3 donated a lot of food, a lot of water, a lot of time to 4 help these people and do things for us. 5 If I forgot anybody, I'm sorry. But there 6 was a lot of people that helped throughout this. 7 Kendall County, huge help. I got almost four pallets of 8 water from them. I took some out to Mountain Home for 9 them folks out there. Trying to do the best with what 10 we have. 11 It would be more -- if we could have got 12 together a little better. We need to work that out. 13 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Yeah, I know. Phones 14 and everything else. One other thing. Water at your 15 station, is that off well or -- 16 MR. HOLT: We're off AQUA Texas, so we didn't 17 have water either. We didn't have any power. We did 18 get a small generator and put two space heaters in our 19 station to keep the pumps from freezing up. 20 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Do you have water now? 21 MR. HOLT: We do have water now. 22 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: And people can come get 23 water and -- 24 MR. HOLT: Yes. We have bottled water, we 25 have nonpotable water. We can deliver it. We just got 84 1 some MRE's today. My assistant, she's putting to fix 2 them up, so we'll of those available. So if anybody 3 need anything, call me, call the station, like us on 4 Facebook. We'll help you as much as we can. And we're 5 here for y'all and whatever we can do, so thank y'all 6 for your time. 7 JUDGE KELLY: Ma'am, you still on the phone? 8 I'm sorry I didn't get your name. Can you identify 9 yourself? 10 (Inaudible.) 11 THE REPORTER: Could you repeat that please. 12 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Renee. Repeat your 13 name. 14 MS. LAFASSO: Renee Brooks -- (inaudible). 15 THE REPORTER: I can't hear her. 16 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: We're not getting it. 17 MS. LAFASSO: This is Renee Brooks Lafasso, 18 L-A-F-A-S-S-O. Yes. Can you hear me? 19 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Yes. Go ahead. 20 MS. LAFASSO: Okay. Renee Brooks Lafasso. 21 JUDGE KELLY: You may speak. 22 MS. LAFASSO: Hello. 23 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Yes. Go ahead. 24 MS. LAFASSO: I don't even know where to 25 again. So -- sorry. I have a couple quick questions. 85 1 Why did the County wait so long -- why did the County 2 wait so long to make the Disaster Declaration. The 3 Governor declared the disaster February 12th. The State 4 made there's on February 15th. And the County waited 5 until February 22nd. (Inaudible.) 6 THE REPORTER: Excuse me. I'm having a hard 7 time getting this. 8 MS. LAFASSO: Why did the Commissioners 9 cancel yesterday's meeting. I mean cancel yesterday's 10 meeting and yet -- I mean, I just don't understand. You 11 canceled on the 17th like -- but you could call an 12 emergency meeting. Like every single day and minutes 13 that passes people -- we are struggling out here. 14 And communications is -- well, that's kind 15 of a joke. Listen, Harley, I look to you because you're 16 my Commissioner, and I meant to look at your website to 17 get some sort of information once I actually could get 18 online, and all I found were a couple of things talking 19 about wind solar energy in China, and things that do not 20 pertain to the emergency situation that we're dealing 21 with, and why now? 22 I mean -- (sigh) you know, I just -- I'm -- 23 I'm mindless. You know, without a Disaster Declaration 24 certain activities with respect to emergency, you 25 know -- (sigh). 86 1 If Dub Thomas had gotten on board with being 2 able to do certain things last week if the declaration 3 had been passed last week by the Judge. Like I mean, I 4 just -- we are looking at people for answers. And 5 obviously it's like -- I just see a finger pointing game 6 everywhere. 7 And instead of someone, you know, taking 8 action, you know. I mean the Governor was in San 9 Antonio on Sunday with FEMA. His whole entire statewide 10 group. Why wasn't one of our County Commissioners or 11 the Judge calling over there, or arriving there Sunday 12 to say yo, we need help. You know? I mean come on 13 y'all. 14 Like we have to look up to some people 15 because -- because we're just trying to survive right 16 now, and it is very difficult. So we do look to you 17 all. Hell, we pay you all. So we certainly look to you 18 all. Not just, you know, look around, but just take 19 action from the very beginning. Not take action a week 20 later. 21 I mean I have faith in every single one of 22 you that you can get out there, start making phone 23 calls, do something. I mean -- (sigh) -- cross state 24 lines. Louisiana is right around the corner, that's 25 where I'm from. We're very familiar with emergency 87 1 situations with hurricanes. I imagine a lot of states 2 are willing to help. Help? Hu. People -- you know, do 3 something, please. We are begging you all to do 4 something now. And figure out the what could have 5 happened, what should have happened, all of that. 6 But like yeah, I wish, you know, you all 7 would have taken -- (sigh). It's like the County seems 8 to fall back on the -- the City always seems to be ahead 9 of the game with this. And yet the County always, you 10 know, track along the side. Days later, you know. 11 As I'm trying to get in touch with my 12 Commissioner -- you know who actually I was able to get 13 in touch with, a Kerr County Councilwoman who actually 14 called my utility company in Bandera because we 15 couldn't. So she was actually able to report our outage 16 which hadn't even been reported. They didn't even know 17 that our power had been out for already three days. And 18 a City Councilwoman did that, you know, because I 19 couldn't get in touch with anyone else in the County. 20 (Sigh.) Yeah. I mean okay. That's really all I got. 21 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. Will you get the phone 22 for me? 23 Thank you. Is there anyone else? 24 Okay. Then the last thing we have on the 25 agenda is actually 1.2, which is to consider, discuss 88 1 and take appropriate action regarding the local State of 2 Disaster due to severe winter weather that was signed by 3 me yesterday, and we have to bring this to the 4 Commissioners' Court we put it on the agenda, because 5 that way we can go on a seven day cycle. 6 MRS. STEBBINS: I think you just have to 7 ratify it within seven days so that it can continue 8 until y'all terminate it. 9 JUDGE KELLY: And if we ratify it, it 10 continues automatically unless we terminate it. 11 MRS. STEBBINS: That's right, yes, sir. 12 That's correct. 13 JUDGE KELLY: That's what we're trying to 14 do. 15 MRS. STEBBINS: Sorry. I couldn't see your 16 face. 17 JUDGE KELLY: Well, I'll make a motion that 18 we go ahead and ratify the disaster order that will 19 remain in effect until we terminate it. We'll review it 20 every week just like we did back in the state of the 21 emergency with the COVID. Is there a second? 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Second. 23 JUDGE KELLY: Okay, I made the motion and 24 seconded by Commissioner Belew. Any discussion? Those 25 in favor raise your hand. There are three of us here. 89 1 It passes three zero. 2 Is there anything else before the Court at 3 this time? 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I just want to state 5 for everybody in Precinct 1 that my number is clearly on 6 the Facebook page, and the website and every place else. 7 And it is 830-329-8810. It's always been available, 8 so -- 9 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. There being nothing 10 further before the Court, we are adjourned. 11 * * * * * * 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 90 1 STATE OF TEXAS * 2 COUNTY OF KERR * 3 I, DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD, Certified Shorthand 4 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, and Official 5 Court Reporter in and for Kerr County, do hereby certify 6 that the above and foregoing pages contain and comprise 7 a true and correct transcription of the proceedings had 8 in the above-entitled Regular Commissioners' Court. 9 Dated this the 5th day of March, A.D. 2021. 10 11 /s/DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD Certified Shorthand Reporter 12 No. 953 Expiration Date 04/31/2021 13 * * * * * * 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25