BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 19, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW // BG Podcast EP. 130: Austin Crisis Update with Selena Xie, President, Austin EMS Association
Today’s episode (130) features Selena Xie, President of the Austin EMS Association. Since Sunday, the energy and weather crisis has impacted all parts of Austin, and EMS medics have been on the frontlines of it all. Selena shares perspectives from what she and her members have seen in that time.
NEW // BG Podcast EP. 129: Discussing Austin's Tech Community with Jason Fernandez, Managing Partner & COO, Quake Capital
Continuing a series of conversations the firm is having around the recent and continued media hype of tech flight to Austin (and Miami), Bingham Group CEO A.J. spoke with his friend Jason Fernandez, Managing Partner & COO, Quake Capital.
Jason is a Miami native who moved and established Austin roots in 2010. He maintains business and personal ties to Miami. The two dig into his impressions on moving to Austin, the tech community here, and also the appeal of his hometown.
You can listen to this episode and previous ones on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
CITY OF AUSTIN
The Austin City Council will next meet for regular business on the following dates:
Work Session, Tuesday, 3.2.2021 @9AM
Council Meeting, Thursday, 3.4.2021 @10AM
THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE
Thursday, 2.25.2021 @ 9AM
The House Committees on State Affairs and Energy Resources will hold a joint public hearing to consider the factors that led to statewide electrical blackouts during the recent unprecedented weather event; the response by industry, suppliers, and grid operators; and changes necessary to avoid future power interruptions.
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (2,183)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Power back on for more than 90% of Austin; focus shifts to water, food access (Austin American-Statesman)
More than 90% of Austin Energy customers had power as of Thursday afternoon, a warming development in the city's continued fight against the winter storm – a fight that now shifts to getting water and food to people without access to necessities.
A total of 40,969 Austin Energy customers were still without power as of 2 p.m. Thursday, down from 220,000 earlier in the week – the peak when less than 60% of the city had power.
"Our crews, our teams, will not stop until every customer has power," Austin Energy General Manager Jacqueline Sargent said Thursday.
Sargent said she could not say when power will be back for everyone. "I wish that bringing everyone back online was as easy as flipping a switch or pushing a button, but it's not," she said.
The progress toward restoring electricity began overnight when the state's grid – operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas – allowed transmission owners like Austin Energy to bring back any load they had previously shed. Austin had shut down every circuit available earlier in the week except for those powering such critical infrastructure as hospitals and emergency response stations… (LINK TO STORY)
First the power went out. Now, Austinites must prepare for 'days without water.' (KUT)
After many Austinites spent days without power, city officials now say many should prepare for days without water. At a press conference Thursday, Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros said there’s still much work to be done to restore service.
“It’s going to be a multi-day process to restore pressure and service,” he says. “Customers that don’t have water, it’s better to plan for the worst conditions: days without water, rather than hours.”
Meszaros says it's hard to give an exact timeline because the agency does not know where or how bad leaks are within the reservoirs. These reservoirs usually store about 100 million gallons of water or about one day's worth of water use in Austin.
At their lowest point, he said, the reserves were nearly empty.
“The water in our reservoirs essentially drained out over the last day,” he said. “We have to bring those reservoirs back up to service and that’s going to take time.”
Right now, all three pressure zones – Central, North and South – are rated critical. Austin Water is working to slowly stabilize the system and restore water pressure. Once that’s done, it will sample the water to ensure it's free from contaminants. The priority now is going to areas with hospitals and other health care centers.
Conditions are improving, Meszaros said. The Ullrich Water Treatment Plant has restored service after being shut down Wednesday due to electrical problems. (But the city remains under a boil-water notice until it can be sure the water is safe to drink.)
Calls for conservation are also bringing levels back to normal. Meszaros said the agency is seeing lower demand relative to the amount of water it can produce.
“That’s exactly the balance we want,” he said.
Meszaros urges people to continue to conserve as much water as possible once their water is restored.
“Don’t go overboard and start using too much water,” he said. “The water you use is water another customer may not have.”… (LINK TO STORY)
U.S. Postal Service operations in Austin suspended indefinitely since Feb. 16 (Community Impact)
The U.S. Post Office is famous for delivery in rain, sleet or snow, but not on unpaved roads covered in ice during a historic winter storm that has caused mass blackouts and water outages.
The U.S. Postal Service confirmed to Community Impact Newspaper on Feb. 18 that delivery service has been suspended indefinitely and has remained that way since Feb. 16. Feb. 15 was a holiday—Presidents Day—which means Austinites have not received regular mail since Feb. 13.
Becky Hernandez, spokesperson for the USPS Texas Rio Grande District, which includes Austin and parts of Central Texas, could not recall another time that the USPS has decided to suspend its service for the entire city of Austin and beyond. Even during the onset of the pandemic, Hernandez said the postal service did not suspend or interrupt service.
Drop-off facilities in Austin are also closed indefinitely, Hernandez said. She could not provide a timeline when operations would return to normal.
Hernandez said the reason for the suspension is because of the road hazards. Many roads in Austin remain under thick layers of ice from the historic winter storms that have ravaged the area since Feb. 15. The storms caused the state’s energy generation and distribution systems to fail, cutting power off to as many as 220,000 Austin Energy customers for multiple days in temperatures that remained well below freezing… (LINK TO STORY)
Rastegar proposes industrial park near COTA (Austin Business Journal)
Rastegar Industrial, an arm of Rastegar Property Company LLC, is slated to develop a 530,000-square-foot industrial park on a 50-acre parcel in Southeast Austin.
The industrial park is located at 11708 McAngus Rd. in Del Valle, near the State Highway 130 toll road. The site is between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the Circuit of The Americas racetrack and event venue. It is also about 8 miles from the site where Tesla Inc. is building a $1.1 billion electric car factory.
Construction is expected to start later this year on the industrial park, which is in an opportunity zone, and wrap up by the third quarter of 2022. Newmark Group Inc. will be handling the property’s leasing on behalf of Rastegar.
An announcement issued by Rastegar said the industrial park would include six buildings and a 200,000-square-foot cross dock facility.
“The property is well-positioned to meet demand for e-commerce needs being driven by the region’s demographic trends and will benefit from the multitude of new development and redevelopment in the area,” a Rastegar spokesperson said in a statement. “In addition to Tesla’s new Gigafactory, luxury fashion and beauty brand Chanel is completing a manufacturing facility a few miles away. Circuit of the Americas, home to the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, as well as concerts and other events, is also planning massive redevelopment that includes a hotel, water park and more.”
In an interview, Rastegar Property Co. founder and CEO Ari Rastegar predicted the SH 130 corridor would be a prime area for industrial growth. The industrial park could provide “immediate logistics support” to many businesses and companies that plan to establish a presence along that corridor, Rastegar said.
Rastegar said Austin needs more industrial space to accommodate tech companies and manufacturers coming to the region… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tells lawmakers to mandate winterization of power generators (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
Texas power plants should have been ready to handle the freezing temperatures seen across the state, Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday, prompting him to announce a two new emergency items for lawmakers to consider. Abbott is calling on Texas legislators to pass measures mandating the winterization of power generators, as well as provide funding to ensure the winter preparations and modernization occurs.
“I want everyone to know that all of us in the state of Texas believe it is completely unacceptable that you had to endure one minute of the challenges you faced,” Abbott said. “All of us agree on the necessity of action. Not just the action taken to restore your power, but the action to ensure that you never have to endure anything like this ever again.” Abbott has slammed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas in recent days over its handling of the winter weather event that led to millions of power outages. Abbott claimed that ERCOT, which oversees Texas’ power grid, purported to be ready for the cold weather in the days ahead of its arrival. After freezes and blackouts in 2011, the Legislature passed a bill related to winterization for power generators. But the legislation lacks enforcement teeth and only requires generators file a weather preparation report with ERCOT that’s then sent to the Public Utility Commission… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas officials warn of price gouging as state faces food, water shortages (NPR)
Texas officials are cracking down on businesses they say have hiked the prices of food, water, and hotel rooms while the state continues to deal with shortages caused by unprecedented winter weather.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, the chief civil attorney for Texas' largest county, and Linda Hidalgo, the Harris County Judge, said Houston area residents have complained of hotel rooms and bottled water being sold at exorbitant prices.
"The main types of things we're seeing is hotels setting prices at ridiculous rates," Menefee told the Associated Press. "We've seen allegations of packs of water being sold for two to three times the normal price, or packs of water being divvied up and the individual bottles being sold at excessive prices."
Menefee and Hidalgo have since set up a system for consumers to report suspected incidents of price gouging. In just 20 hours, the system logged more than 450 complaints, they said.
This is while much of the state continues to face food and water shortages following bitterly cold temperatures and power outages that have lasted days after a winter storm walloped Texas this week. Increasing prices for essentials during an emergency declaration is against the law in Texas… (LINK TO STORY)
This year’s winter storm could become the costliest weather event in Texas history (Dallas Morning News)
The deep freeze and snowfall that paralyzed Texas this week could be the costliest weather event in state history as home and auto claims start to pour in, insurance industry officials warn. Ice, snow and some of the coldest temperatures in decades will likely result in large insurance claims from customers in every part of the state after the winter storm prompted a precedent-setting weather warning in all 254 counties. “We are used to our storms here in Texas with tornadoes, hurricanes and hail,” said Camille Garcia, communications director with the Insurance Council of Texas, a trade group for the state’s home, auto, renters and business insurance agents. “But those are regional. We are talking about an event that reached every part of Texas.”
This storm, which isn’t over as many parts of the state are still experiencing snow and sub-freezing conditions, will probably be costlier than Hurricane Harvey, which amounted to $19 billion in insurance claims or about $20.1 billion adjusted for inflation, Garcia said. And that only includes losses from the home, auto, renters and business insurance market and wouldn’t cover costs from public infrastructure, energy pipelines and power plants that are under extreme pressure from high demand and debilitating weather. Hurricane Harvey tortured the Gulf Coast for days in 2017 after making landfall in Rockport and stalling over Houston, dumping record-setting rainfall that flooded neighborhoods and damaged refineries. North Texas’ most expensive weather events have come in the form of hailstorms in 1992 and 1995 that each resulted in less than $3 billion in damage. The October 2019 tornadoes that ripped through Dallas and Richardson created about $1.5 billion in claims. In fact, the storm that froze Texas and surrounding states could be the most expensive in U.S. history, dwarfing a 1993 winter storm that paralyzed the southern U.S., including Texas, and cost about $5 billion total and $2 billion in insured damages, according to the Insurance Information Institute… (LINK TO STORY)