GONZALES, Texas — After winds ripped his roof off, friends surrounded Ronnie Holcombe with heartfelt hugs and handshakes, marveling at his survival.
Holcombe said he was on the way home when a powerful storm surge started rocking his truck. He said it was a mad dash for the safety of his home but as he raced inside the door, the storm caught up.
Holcombe said "It was like bam! It was like all of a sudden, right there in front of us. We slammed the door shut and we got down in case anything else was going to happen. And there went the roof, like a downdraft."
Emerging from the wreckage of his 2,000 square foot workshop, which used to adjoin the front of his home, he found his roof about 100 feet away, twisted and torn into pieces.
Examining stout beam construction that was built to withstand the rigors of mechanical work, Holcombe said it was hard to see the remnants left behind when the structure ripped apart.
With friends showing up and offering labor and chain saws to begin the restoration process, Holcombe said he's confident he will have the help he needs to recover.
"Everybody's okay. Thank God for that!" Holcombe said with relief.
Around the region though, a long, dark, hot night was expected for many as the Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative (GVEC) races to repair some badly damaged infrastructure.
Chief Operating Officer Sean Alvarez said at the height of the storm around noontime Monday, they had about 4,000 members without service.
Alvarez said "We're mainly spending time and efforts focusing on the higher concentration of outages right now, which begin with basically transmission structures heading down to the substations."
With repair crews braving additional rain and broad bolts of lightning, Alvarez said it would be all hands on deck until every meter was back on.
"Currently we've identified three transmission structures that are on the ground and that is where we have the vast majority of members that are without power right now. It's due to the transmission feeds that serve their substations."
Alvarez had high praise for all of the workers who would be on duty throughout the night.
"These guys are heroes when it comes to these types of conditions. We always call them the unsung heroes because they rush into conditions that most of us do not want to be a part of. Whether it's high winds or lightning or rain, cold weather, whatever it may be, these folks rush into these situations," Alvarez said.
Alvarez said bringing everyone back online would be a methodical process that might reveal more problems as service is restored.
"Once you realize you can bring substations back online, sometimes you will start to identify more issues with what we call the distribution network, that you weren't able to tell had problems because the substation as a whole was out.," Alvarez said, adding he hopes members are understanding "I think we just ask for people to be patient with us while our guys try to safely work to restore power."
More information about current conditions of the grid can be found here: https://www.gvec.org/electric/report-an-outage/.
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