Arctic blast just a memory as residents were prepared

Residents prepared, stayed indoors, keeping emergencies to a minimum

BY JEFF B. FLINN Managing Editor

The freezes of 2021 and February 2023 put Boerne residents in the right frame of mind last week, as residents prepared for the Arctic blast that dropped temperatures into the teens for three days.

Preparation kept damage and emergency responses to a minimum, according to figures released by the city.

The Boerne Police Department responded to 23 accidents from Sunday night, when the cold front arrived, through Tuesday, the final day of the frigid cold.

Boerne Fire Department crews responded to 15 emergencies Jan. 14, including four vehicle collisions and a semi-trailer truck accident on Interstate 10. Three of the 15 were EMS calls related to the bad weather.

The fire department reported only eight calls Monday, including motor vehicle collisions, falls, and fire alarms. The biggest issue for the fire department, according to a city news release, was responding to multiple fall calls from people who slipped on the ice.

Boerne Utilities reported three major outages during the Sunday-Tuesday time frame: 160 customers lost power when a feeder line tripped during the ice; 75 customers lost power to a failing transformer; and more than 50 customers lost power due to a melted line fuse.

There were three other outages that were minor, contained to under 20 customers each, the city release said.

The city prepared and staged vehicles and equipment ahead of the event to enable quick response to service calls for Utilities, Streets, Fire, and Police departments, according to Robert Taylor, Boerne digital managing editor.

Taylor said essential service staff -- including Boerne utilities, customer care and billing, streets, fire, police, and dispatch – worked through the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend and were available on standby as needed.

City staff coordinated with commercial business owners with fire sprinkler systems, reminding them to have measures in place to protect pipes from a hard freeze, and apartment complexes to ensure that vacant rooms have working heat to avoid burst pipes, Taylor stated in a news release.

Parks department staff turned off all city-maintained water fountains and locked all city-maintained restrooms and water disconnection by Saturday afternoon.

Patrick Heath Public Library staff assisted with operating the Community Room as a warming center for anyone needing a safe place to escape the elements.

Plumbing companies were kept busy tending to customers with frozen and burst pipes. Hill Country Plumbing reported about 100 calls per day for weather- related service through the week.