East Medina Special Utility District fared pretty darn well during the Snow Storm of 2021, thanks to two generators (300kw) that they purchased years ago.
“They were meant for short term outages, not days long,” said Bruce Alexander, EMSUD. “Some thought we over shot it buying generators that big, but we wanted to make sure we had them and I’m sure glad we do.”
However there are still challenges.
“We have already gone through 12 thousand gallons of diesel fuel to power the generators. Thankfully we were able to partner with a local farmer to keep these generators going,” Alexander stated in an interview Wednesday, February 17 before the next snow hit.
“We have a total of five wells that service our 3,200 customers, and we are down to just the two that are on generators,” Alexander said.
“The District has the ability to interconnect our system and provide a minimal level of service to all 3,200 accounts,” from those two sites thankfully.
Some might still experience low water pressure and outages here and there.
“The elevated tanks have ice, and as it breaks down some of it plugs up the lines temporarily, keeping it from coming out of the tank as fast, so that’s another thing we are dealing with.”
Overall they are in pretty good shape. Some of their customers never experienced any water outage through all of this.
“Our guys are out there around the clock since Sunday, and I want to thank everyone who has worked together to make this happen.”
Thanks to the East Medina team for having the foresight to prepare for difficult circumstances like these.
“East Medina says a special thanks to board member Hector DeLaFuente, and his son Gerald, who borrowed a fuel trailer from Alan Zinsmeyer along with Wayne Rodgers to haul us fuel as needed. Thank you to our customers for their patience and understanding.”
One local man, Jacob Cashion, commented, “We have these guys and have been truly blessed to have water through all of this!” Many others echoed his sentiment as we saw our neighbors in the city limits of Devine going days on end without running water, along with all the power outages.
By Kayleen Holder
Editor