City navigates electrical shortages

City Administrator Phillip Patterson addressed concerns over Tuesday morning’s blackout and other power shortages at the city board meeting later that evening.

Patterson’s address discussed why the service interruption occurred as well as questions about businesses being asked to close because their power was being shut off.

Early on Tuesday morning, Electric Department Director Phil Stokes sent Patterson a text stating the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), which manages the electrical grid for 14 states, declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level Three and directed the Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) to have the city turn off power in Siloam Springs, Patterson said.

SPP also handles reliability coordination for three other states as well, according to spp.org.

Electric power has three circuits that conduct electricity and the city’s plan was to turn off the circuit to industrial companies who are the largest consumers of electricity, Patterson said. The city flipped the switch and shut the power off, Patterson said.

Around 7:20 a.m. Patterson received a call from the hospital saying their back up generator did not come on because the diesel fuel in the generator congealed, he said. Patterson called Stokes and told him they have to do something because the hospital cannot be without power.

“The only option for us to do at that moment in time was to make a quick decision, a fast decision, which was to turn everybody else off in the city and turn power back on to the large power consumers,” Patterson said. “The reality is when Southwest Power Pool calls GRDA, they expect GRDA to figure out in five minutes which circuits to turn off and all we’re doing is trying to tell GRDA which circuits we want turned off.”

Patterson said there was no time to provide any notification to the whole city because they had to think of something to do quickly. Power to the rest of the city was off for 31 minutes, he said.

Siloam Springs Regional Hospital did not comment on the

generator but did issue a statement on Wednesday stating their backup generator remains operational and is ready to be activated in the event of power supply disruptions or natural disasters.

“Siloam Springs Regional Hospital is prepared to care for all patients who need medical attention and we encourage patients experiencing a medical emergency to seek care promptly,” it stated.

Later that day electric department staff were able to switch the hospital from the circuit providing power to all of the large consumers to one of the other circuits that mainly handled residential power, Patterson said.

Patterson said SPP was rolling from one city to the next so that nobody is severely impacted in order to prevent large blackouts like those experienced in Texas.

“There’s 4 million people in the state of Texas that (haven’t) had power in four days and this is their attempt to try to prevent that,” Patterson said.

Many electrical producers in the south use natural gas to create electricity, Patterson said. Natural gas wells in Oklahoma and Texas are frozen due to the severe weather, he said.

This, combined with the greater demand for natural gas to heat homes, have hurt the ability for those who produce electricity using natural gas to be able to do that, Patterson said.

He gave a timeline of the city’s actions from Feb. 13 to Feb. 16, stating he had received multiple calls from Stokes, who had been given directions to shut off power on at least two other occasions on Feb. 15 where the grid stabilized and interrupting services was not necessary.

“This is definitely uncharted waters and an unprecedented time,” Patterson said.

Patterson also said other electric providers were instituting similar methods. For example, Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) did interrupted service to Bentonville, Fayetteville, Lincoln and Rogers; Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E) had service interruptions that lasted in some cases up to four hours; and Arkansas Electrical Cooperatives have asked people to voluntarily limit their power usage through midnight on Tuesday, Patterson said. The time was later extended.

The Arkansas Division of Emergency Management (ADEM) said natural gas companies are asking residents to conserve energy, he said.

“I wish that we had time to process a better plan but we were working on the fly,” Patterson said.

The city board discussed and approved the following items:

Consent Agenda

• Regular meeting minutes for the Feb. 2 meeting.

• The Arkansas Municipal League’s settlement authorization agreement.

• Dedication of utility easements and the rightof-way for the 2600 block of South Elm Street.

• Dedication of utility easements and the rightof-way for the 300 and 400 block of North Hico Street.

Budget Amendment

• Approving a budget amendment for $12,000 for an electric vehicle charging station.

Contracts

• Approving a purchase for a 2021 John Deere dozer from Stribling Equipment in the amount of $206,688.

• Approving a purchase for a 2021 Riggs CAT 2021 pad foot soil compactor in the amount of $128,904.

Resolutions

• Approving Resolution 05-21 concerning a significant development permit for the Simmons Foods Processing Facility Expansion at 316 N. Hico Street.

Ordinances

• Placing Ordinance 2102 regarding the vacation of un-named rights-of-way at 316 N. Hico Street on its first reading.

Staff Reports

• Administrator’s Report.