The Midweek #78: Straight-Line Winds Rip Through San Antonio’s Tree Canopy. What Would an Investor-Owned Utility Do?

When I checked the National Weather Service forecast Friday morning, Aug. 28, the forecast called for “low to medium storm chances.”

Then all hell broke loose around 8 p.m. NWS bulletins alerted residents in northern Bexar County to what they already were experiencing: a fast-moving line of thunderstorms with driving rains and winds reaching 75 mph, enough to uproot mature trees, damage property and send unsecured items flying. Radar apps showed an enormous storm descending on the city from the northeast, moving in a southwesterly direction.

I happened to be driving on U.S. 281, as lightning strikes stretched across the horizon, signaling this would be no ordinary summer thunderstorm. The CPS Energy service area was hit with a stunning 24,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. By the time I arrived home, just ahead of the storm, the dogs were panting with fear and the rising winds in the tree canopy in Southtown created their own distinct sound. It was time to shelter.

Straight-line winds, created in severe thunderstorms when rapidly descending air hits the ground rather than circulates in a vortex as winds do in a tornado, cut a 35-mile-long swath through the metro area. Hurricane-like winds averaged 55-60 mph with wind gusts that reached 75-80 mph at San Antonio International Airport, strong enough to topple live power lines and uproot thousands of heritage hardwood trees that blocked roads and neighborhood streets.

More than 112,000 customers of CPS Energy lost power, which probably translates to a much higher number of people since the municipal utility counts hook-ups, not people when reporting such outages. More than 500 power lines went down, and more than 50 utility poles had to be replaced. Yet by 3 p.m. Monday, power had been restored to all but 1,240 customers, and by 11 p.m., that number had fewer than 700. All storm-related outages were resolved by Tuesday.

Two people died in the storm. One woman was swept away by rising floodwaters near San Pedro Creek downtown, and a man was found dead at Woodlawn Lake.

City crews reported the removal of about 400 trees blocking roadways and streets and hauling off 550 tons of brush in 84 truckloads. That doesn’t even begin to describe the damage. I spent two hours Sunday driving along the path of the storm, often finding myself at blocked neighborhood streets where downed trees had not yet been removed. Chainsaw crews were seemingly everywhere, from the deep Westside, in Monte Vista, through Olmos Park and Alamo Heights and northeast along I-35 North.

The lost tree canopy in the various municipalities will be significant. Many mature hardwoods, weakened by multiple drought cycles, succumbed in the storm. In a city where people are struggling with record heat waves and a rising incidence of extreme weather events, the loss of such cooling shade should not be underestimated.

Blaming CPS Energy is a fool’s errand. The city’s highly rated municipal energy utility cannot be blamed for the rise in destructive weather-related events, whether it’s worsening heat waves, high winds causing wildfires, or extreme events like Winter Storm Uri in 2021. The utility’s crews worked day and night over the weekend to restore power while city crews did the same to clear storm debris and reopen roadways and neighborhoods.

If anything, I fault the utility for suppressing energy costs for so long. Since 2014, rates have increased less than 8.5%. Keeping rates low for everyone is simply not realistic with rising labor and material costs in one of the fastest-growing markets in the country. Affordability programs can protect the city’s substantial population of people living in poverty, but everyone else should expect energy costs to rise right along with everything else. Given the inflationary economy, it should come as no surprise that CPS Energy is seeking another rate increase. Even so, our utility bills are among the lowest in the nation for a major city.

What if we eliminated CPS Energy and opened the market to investor-owned utilities that owe their primary allegiance to shareholders, as a campaigning Gov. Greg Abbott has called for? Would profits and the balance sheet come before customers after such a destructive storm? Who would have worked long into the night this past weekend to restore power and lead the cleanup?

To answer that question, we only have to look back seven years to 2019 and how Pacific Gas and Electric handled its system-wide power shutdowns as high winds repeatedly fed spreading wildfires in Northern California. State investigators with the California Public Utilities Commission later found PG&E liable for neglecting its responsibility to clear brush and other flammable debris from around its power poles. The cost savings from such deferred maintenance must have looked good on paper to shareholders, but the consequences were devastating.

The California PUC found that PG&E violated state laws by pre-emptively shutting off power to 732,000 customers Oct. 12-19, leaving most without power for 37 hours. Even after the fire alerts were lifted, many customers went without power for another full day, according to state regulators. One week later, a preemptive power shutdown affected nearly 1 million customers, or more than 2 million people. The post-event outages lasted even longer, more than two days for many unhappy PG&E customers.

The utility was assessed hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and settlement fees, and it sought refuge from mounting lawsuits by declaring bankruptcy. A later CPUC study found that PG&E’s electrical equipment and neglected maintenance of brush caused 16 of 17 wildfires examined from 2017 forward.

I still remember reading about affected customers who called the utility after hours, only to hear a recording inviting them to call back during regular business hours.

CPS Energy is racing to keep up with record population growth and development in its service area. That and the high costs of Winter Storm Uri when natural gas suppliers were permitted to charge CPS Energy and other utilities hugely excessive rates have contributed significantly to the need for a rate increase. Every public entity is struggling to meet the high infrastructure costs of this growth. It isn’t going to stop.

For those looking to blame someone, I’d turn your attention to state elected officials who are climate change deniers and who have tens of billions of dollars in the state’s Rainy Day Fund that could be used to address the state’s real world needs. Investments must be made now to better gird the state for a future of more extreme weather events. If politicians succeed in handing the CPS Energy service area over to for-profit operators, the costs will be severe and irreversible.

With this in mind, I hope everyone plans to vote in November. Once the seasons turn, let’s get busy planting trees, especially in the inner city neighborhoods that lack tree canopy and the shade and lower temperatures other neighborhoods have long taken for granted.