Tornadoes, straight-line winds and torrential rains ravaged Heart of
Texas Electric Cooperative. United stepped in to lend a helping hand.
by
MATT ARNOLD
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The weather radar that May day showed a massive, 80-mile line of thunderstorms that stretched from Gatesville in the north to the Brazos River near Hearne in the south.
Almost all of Heart of Texas Electric Cooperative’s service area felt Mother Nature’s fury, from north to south. According to the National Weather Service, the storm spawned two, EF2 tornados that ran amok near Temple, Texas, destroying everything in their path with winds clocking as high as 157 miles per hour.
Barry Brown, HOTEC’s IT operator, watched the storm from his home near McGregor. The torrential rain was so intense, Brown said he couldn’t even see his neighbor’s house across the street.
“I started seeing outages coming on the map, and I knew immediately with the thousands and thousands of meters out and once we hit 7,000 then 9,000, there’s no way we’d be able to restore that many people in a couple of hours,” Brown said. “I went outside and it was pretty wild. Trees were leaning over, bent over. The amount of rain and wind was just kind of the wow factor of okay, this is definitely serious.”
The distress call went out from HOTEC, and United Cooperative Services stepped up to help, sending six men and tons of machinery south to HOTEC’s office in Rosebud, just east of Temple. Joining United were crews from MidSouth Electric Cooperative and Hilco Electric Cooperative.
The storm had caused significant infrastructure damage, necessitating the replacement of many utility poles. Straight-line winds damaged trees, buildings and utility lines.
Bryan Chandler, operations manager for HOTEC, said he had never seen anything like it.
“I’ve been with the co-op for 25 years and this was probably one of the worst springtime weather events that I’ve witnessed,” Chandler said. “Crews from MidSouth, Hilco, United and contractors out of Wise assisted us in changing out well over 50 poles. Our understanding was that it was an F2 tornado. The storm pretty much started in the northern border and went all the way to the Brazos River.”
The United cadre sent down to help consisted of six men: Line Crew Chiefs Rygh Fullagar and Cody Goforth led the team consisting of Journeymen Linemen Bradley Brem and Tyler Anderson, as well as First Class Lineman JT Higgins and Apprentice Lineman III Josh Simmons.
The six met early in the morning the day after the storms and departed from United’s Meridian office, arriving around 9:30 a.m in Rosebud. After reporting for duty, it was long hours. Another storm rolled through that day Anderson said, undoing much of the work that had already been done, but they continued late into the night, working a 16-hour shift.
“Their whole system took a big hit, especially down towards the Rosebud area, east of Temple,” he said. “I saw a cow pasture and you could see where it went, either wind or a tornado came straight through there, because not a single tree didn’t have a break in it. People’s metal roofs were blown off into fences. It got pretty severe down there.”
By the 48-hour mark, most of the 9,000 members out of power had been restored. Only a few remained.
“I appreciate the opportunity to go and, you know, it was fun,” Anderson said. “It’s the best part about my job, in my opinion. You get to go out there and help people.”
United’s CEO Cameron Smallwood said that sending a crew down to HOTEC was not only the right thing to do, it embodied United’s sixth guiding principle of cooperation among cooperatives.
“This time it was HOTEC who needed our help,” Smallwood said. “The next big storm may hit us here at United, and we’ll need help from them. It’s the cooperative way. Our linemen who stepped up and volunteered to leave their families behind and serve their neighbors represent the best of who we are. And I thank them and feel blessed to have them here with us.”
