News Southwest Rural Electric Association February 2016


Winter storms are not unusual in Texhoma. We are used to winter northers and occasional bouts with snow and ice. Some storms impact us, though, more than others.


The ice storm that blew in December 26-28 was no normal winter storm. Its impact was massive because it affected every part of our service territory and caused an incredible amount of damage. The National Weather Service refered to the storm as Goliath because of its size and the scope of its impact.


Damaging Conditions


There are two winter culprits that bring down utility lines – freezing rain and strong winds. Alone, each can do damage. When the two come together, the effects can be devastating. Freezing rain causes the accumulation of ice on lines, adding tremendous weight. Strong winds make the ice-covered lines start to sway and dance. Effects of that motion cause power poles to snap, sometimes in a row, one after another. The conditions on Saturday night, December 26, began that process. They continued through Sunday morning, December 27, eased during the day on Sunday, and began again on Sunday night. During that time span it was impossible for SWRE and Western Farmers crews to accurately assess the location and scope of damages because they kept changing. The cycle of freezing and thawing over a three-day period kept causing new damages.


Transmission Line Failure


The ice and wind devastated SWRE’s distribution lines, but also downed Western Farmers transmission lines. On December 27, WFEC lost its transmission into all of SWRE’s substations. During this time, every single SWRE account in Texas and Oklahoma was without power. In addition, most cities across our area that are served by PSO and Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority were also without power. This included Altus, Frederick, Snyder, Tipton, Manitou, Davidson, and numerous other communities. In Texas, the City of Electra was without power. Electra has its own municipal power system but purchased its power from Western Farmers. SWRE has a contract with the City of Electra to maintain the lines within their town, but SWRE is not their electric company -- a fact that confused many Electra citizens and some area news media.


Volume 63


Safety, Service, Satisfaction... One Member at a Time! Number 2


December Ice Storm Impacts SWRE


Ice on lines combined with 50-60 mph winds to take down SWRE lines throughout the co-op’s 6,000-square-mile service territory. Downed lines in this picture are near Chillicothe, Texas.


Photo by Rick Risinger Busy Phone Lines


SWRE always advises its members to call the co-op to report outages. That’s normally good advice, but it resulted in problems on December 27 when all of SWRE’s substations went down and thousands of people tried to call in at the same time.


Early in this outage, it wasn’t necessary to pinpoint outage locations because all SWRE accounts were out of power! SWRE’s office staff was called to co-op headquarters to answer phones. The phone lines could handle only a limited number of calls at a time, though, so the office’s phones literally rang non-stop, one call after another, for several days.


When they called, the vast majority of members of


our co-op were understanding and polite. The ladies who answered SWRE’s phones understood each caller’s frustation, because every one of them was also without electricity at their homes -- some for most of the 13-day outage duration.


Most callers wanted to know when their power would


be restored. SWRE could not answer that question – not because the co-op was being evasive, but because we didn’t have that answer. Many complicated factors determined when electricity was restored to any location, including the ability of Western Farmers to Continued on Page Three


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132