Local News: As Hurricane Season Approaches Brazos Valley Leaders Want Change

Local Leaders Pressure Legislature for Changes Before Hurricane Season
By Dave Lewis, Examiner Publisher

From the Navasota Examiner

The visible reminders of last September’s Hurricane Ike are all but gone, but memories of days without power are still fresh on many minds, including the Navasota City Council, Grimes County commissioners and residents of other nearby towns.

Mayor Bert Miller and City Manager Brad Stafford, along with County Judge Betty Shiflett and Bedias Mayor Mackie Bobo, were among a local contingent in Austin March 10 in support of legislation introduced by State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst that could help blunt the impact of storm outages in the future.

Kolkhorst has introduced HB 1463 and HB 1464 in hopes of convincing the legislature that it needs to allow Navasota and other municipalities more flexibility in accessing other sources of power during emergency situations, if available, rather than having to rely solely on a single provider.

HB 1463 seeks to give the Public Utility Commission of Texas the authority to order electric utilities to provide power to other electric providers during a natural disaster or declared emergency. In short, the PUC could order one provider to make power available to another through an agreement to do so during an emergency.

HB 1464 would give cities the right, if approved by its voters, to offer electrical service to customers within an area where another electric provider holds a certificate of convenience and necessity to provide power.


Mayor Miller said last week that Rep. Kolkhorst’s presentation to the Texas House State Affairs Committee was well-received, and also said the city has been working with Kolkhorst to impress upon legislators Navasota’s need for an alternate plan should another severe storm cripple power supply capabilities.

When Ike moved through Navasota, Entergy Texas Inc. was unable to maintain electrical service to Navasota. However, MidSouth Synergy customers “some of them within the city limits” were without power for only a few hours. It took Entergy five days to restore power here and eight days to bring power back to Bedias.

“We’re not just sitting on this,” Miller said. “Here we are a few months away from hurricane season again, but without legislation, we can’t change anything.”

Stafford said that Kolkhorst essentially told the committee, chaired by Dallas area District 65 Rep. Burt Solomons, “Fix the problems, or let us go to another provider.”

Ronnie Hale, District Representative for Entergy Texas, also testified on HB 1463. “I think we are certainly for that (bill) and we are working with the parties to see how it can be effectively done to be able to make it a reality.” As for HB 1464, Hales said, “I am very reluctant to comment on that.”

Judge Shiflett said the hearing was very positive and that “Entergy has recognized the problem and they are working on it. There are a lot of sources we could work out an agreement with to provide power. My main concern is that we (Grimes County towns) can have a process where we can share power. It’s not something we have to use on a daily basis. We could consider it as some sort of networking system.”

As for HB 1464, Shiflett said she thinks its consideration “is very complicated. The power companies have had service agreements in these areas a long time.”

Bedias’ Bobo said a solution is needed. “The Legislature needs to find a solution so we are not in this situation again,” she said. “There are lots of alternative (providers) available. Bedias is an island surrounded by other providers. Entergy was very good to keep us informed about what was going on (during the Ike power outage), but we were still out of power for eight days.”

As for HB 1464, Bobo said the city would not be interested in becoming a power provider.

Mayor Miller and Stafford said they, too, were not convinced that bringing Navasota into the electrical power supply business is a feasible alternative.

The main theme stressed by the local representatives in Austin is that the Legislature needs to provide in advance some avenue of relief for storm or disaster-stricken areas whereby power can be purchased and provided to customers when the need arises.

Published on Wednesday, March 18, 2009