Atmos explains what went wrong during pre-Christmas arctic blast

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — Atmos Energy informed Texas officers that demand exceeded the corporate’s “contingency planning” when greater than 2,300 clients noticed their fuel service interrupted during a pre-Christmas arctic blast.

In the times after the winter occasion, Gov. Greg Abbott, in addition to native and state officers, demanded that Atmos clarify why a whole bunch of residents in North Texas discovered themselves with little or no fuel strain, leaving them unable to warmth their properties as life-threatening chilly temperatures swept the state. 

“The issue was not system-wide,” Atmos mentioned in response to a letter from state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Arlington, who represents parts of Arlington and Grand Prairie. “It was caused by demand during the winter event that exceeded our contingency planning in local areas.” 

“Going forward, we recognize the need to have even more robust contingency planning and enhance our redundant capabilities…,” the letter said. 

Turner informed WFAA in an interview Tuesday that he’s not but happy with the corporate’s solutions.

“I think there’s some useful information in there, but I think there’s still a lot of incomplete answers,” Turner mentioned. “We nonetheless do not perceive precisely why the system failed for therefore many households in Grand Prairie and Arlington on December 22 and 23. I haven’t got a transparent understanding of precisely how that is going to be prevented, once more, sooner or later, ought to there be one other full climate occasion, which there very effectively might be as we’re solely in January.

Turner mentioned he, Grand Prairie Mayor Ron Jensen and state Sens. Royce West and Nathan Johnson met with Atmos officers every week in the past on the primary day of the legislative session. 

He mentioned he additionally plans to satisfy quickly with the senior employees of the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) to debate Atmos’ solutions and to contemplate subsequent steps. The RRC regulates fuel firms. 

For the primary time Atmos detailed the variety of clients affected by the storm. 

Atmos informed the RRC that 2,306 clients reported “service interruptions.” Those included 226 in Arlington, 179 in Grand Prairie, 231 in Fort Worth and 24 in Benbrook – amounting to lower than one p.c of the shoppers in these cities. 

“Based on available information, the service interruptions lasted on average 14 hours in Arlington, 12 hours in Grand Prairie, 13 hours in Fort Worth and 11 hours in Benbrook,” Atmos informed the RRC. 

Atmos informed the RRC that the service interruptions had been “caused by different circumstances than those experienced” during the February 2021 winter storm.

In the 2021 winter storm, the corporate mentioned it struggled to acquire pure fuel provides. However, in the latest winter occasion, the corporate mentioned, “the service interruptions were primarily due to instances of capacity restraints where demand exceeded our contingency plans in localized areas.”

Grand Prairie officers had been outraged by the latest outages and despatched a Dec. 28 letter asking the RRC to carry Atmos accountable for “insufficient responses” during the latest winter storm. 

“Over the last four winter weather events, our history with Atmos has underlined a harmful pattern of infrastructure failure in isolated neighborhoods, delayed communication and an absence of proactiveness in public education,” wrote Mayor Ron Jensen and City Manager Steve Dye. 

Jensen informed WFAA final month that the Grand Peninsula and Westchester neighborhoods in his metropolis suffered extreme outages, though he’d been promised they wouldn’t.

Two of the town’s hearth stations additionally misplaced fuel strain fully about eight hours into the winter occasion. 

In the letter, Grand Prairie metropolis officers additionally faulted Atmos officers for failing to speak earlier than fuel pressures “significantly dropped” and for failing to inform “impacted residents” about how one can report outages, which compelled the town to ship its personal emergency message on behalf of Atmos. 

“This latest winter storm was predicted, well in advance and Atmos’ service failed only eight hours into extreme cold weather, and they also failed to proactively notify our city as to the loss in pressure,” the letter mentioned.  

In its response to Rep. Turner, Atmos mentioned it will take further provisions for having extra compressed pure fuel out there in areas of Grand Prairie, Arlington, Fort Worth and Benbrook during future winter storms. 

“We are committed to working with our state regulators and state agency partners to prepare for and respond to future weather events,” the letter to Turner mentioned. 

Atmos informed RRC officers that it ought to have met with Grand Prairie officers to debate its plans and preparation for the winter season. The firm mentioned it had accomplished two of three tasks to help elevated demand for pure fuel within the Grand Peninsula space. 

The firm mentioned that it had accomplished 10 tasks in Arlington, Grand Prairie and Mansfield. Two tasks have practically been accomplished. The tasks price about $11 million.