Report on Austin's 2023 winter storm Mara shows some overlapping failures with 2021's Uri
A city report on Winter Storm Mara — the early 2023 ice storm that left 171,000 Austin and Travis County households without power — outlines how communication failures, downed trees and damaged infrastructure caused dayslong power outages for residents.
The 141-page report, released Tuesday, details what went wrong and what went well, stating the "important lessons learned include tempering expectations of recovery time, building community resilience and the need for more robust contingency planning to mitigate obstacles."
Power outages during Winter Storm Mara were largely caused by trees freezing and falling onto the power lines and damaging other critical infrastructure. The report found that: "Improper maintenance of trees outside the right-of-way contributed to power outages, increased the amount of debris in roadways and other damage."
"It’s incredibly frustrating that many of these same shortcomings had also been highlighted in the After-Action Report on Winter Storm Uri from back in 2021 and had not yet been addressed two years later," Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in his newsletter.
The report recommended that the city and Travis County work together to educate property owners on the "responsibility regarding proper care for trees that are not near power lines but could pose a risk during extreme weather events."
The report also highlighted the "communication breakdowns" that occurred during the storm — something that was also identified as a challenge in the after-action report from Winter Storm Uri in 2021 that caused extensive power outages and the death of some Austin and Travis County residents.
There were communication failures between government agencies trying to mitigate the emergency weather situation, as well as miscommunication between the city and the public, the report said.
Bob Kahn, the new general manager of Austin Energy, previously told the American-Statesman that when the 2023 storm brought more ice than predicted, Austin Energy wasn't ready.
"Then we went on TV and said, 'Here's when we think power is going to be back on,' and we were incorrect," Kahn said.
Despite calling in about 400 additional crew members from surrounding areas, because of the devastation, "the power was going to be out for at least a week or so," Kahn said.
The after-action report states: "Had Austin Energy performed a full system assessment prior to announcing an estimated time of restoration, the extent of the damage would have been clearer, leading to a better understanding that it was going to take more than a week to fully restore power."
Problems and proposed changes to emergency response in Austin
The main report broke down the assessment of what happened into six categories: shelter management, communications, planning and preparation, operational coordination, resource and asset management, and technology and infrastructure during the storm. Austin Energy and Austin Resource Recovery each provided its own assessment of the storm.
"This time, we will do better," Watson said. "We already are doing better, even without this report. It’s hard to admit how very angry I still am about how badly I thought things were being handled. It’s resulted in a lot of changes."
Some of those changes, according to Watson, include:
Upgrading Austin Energy’s Outage Map.
Equipping city facilities and shelters with emergency generators.
Accelerating tree trimming and vegetation clearing near power lines and studying the feasibility of burying the power lines.
Conducting a regional assessment of the gaps and needs in our emergency response plans.
The next step, according to the report, is developing a "Corrective Action Plan and Implementation Strategy with all key partners."
"This plan will include more scenario-based training, defined communication protocols and a comprehensive resource allocation plan," the report states. "The Corrective Action Plan will be finalized within three months."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Report: Austin's 2023 winter storm shows overlapping failures with Uri
