Davey Tree Flipbooks

8 THE DAVEY BULLETIN | May/June 2023 MISSION CENTRAL TEXAS ICE STORM DEEMED 'TREE-MAGEDDON' Large broken limbs from a live oak tree damaged this utility pole in Austin, Texas. "One-hundred sixty thousand Austin residents were without power," Maudlin said. "Our crews assisted with everything from complete pole line rebuilds to ticket calls that came through the Austin Energy hotline. They worked around the clock, putting in 16-hour shifts, seven days a week for three weeks solid." Brandon Freeman, area manager, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico operations, Surgery Company, said Davey employees put in 20,000 work-hours on Mara recovery efforts. Maudlin added, "Our crews were incident-free, which is no small feat at that many hours, especially with employees coming in to assist from outside areas. It was a fantastic effort by all crews and parties involved, working together, and collaborating in an inclusive atmosphere." DRG UVM INSPECTS LINES Jefferson Pate, UVM lead specialist, Davey Resource Group (DRG), Utility Vegetation Management services (UVM), led a team of 18 UVM employees in Austin supporting Austin Energy for three and a half weeks in February. Six employees from UVM's Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E) account traveled to Austin to support Pate's local team for four of those days. Pate's team responded to 1,350 calls from property owners reporting broken limbs hanging on or near power lines. Six hundred of those calls were handled while the OG&E crews were in town to assist. "We couldn't send a crew to respond to every single call. Instead, our team went to each of these properties and checked to see if there was actual work that needed to be done. In some cases, the tree limbs had already fallen and cleared the wires. Sometimes it was a communication line rather than a power line," Pate said. R/C CREWS MEET OVER STORM RESPONSE, KEEP SMILING Mike Presta, district manager, North Austin office, said he has been doing tree work for a decade now and has never seen anything like it. "The damage was similar to that of a tornado," Presta said. It was at least 100 miles long and 60 miles wide and stretched from north of San Antonio all the way up into Temple, Texas." Winter Storm Mara hit Austin, Texas and the surrounding area with freezing temperatures, coating trees and power lines with a thick layer of ice. The Austin Fire Department's (AFD) Joel G. Baker, fire chief, deemed the aftermath of Mara a "Tree-mageddon" in AFD's "Winter Weather Report 2023." An estimated 10.5 million trees were damaged in Austin during the first 72 hours of the storm, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. DAVEY TREE SURGERY COMPANY CREWS WORK AS ONE Josh Maudlin, account manager, Austin Energy account, Surgery Company, said the storm hit on January 31 and lasted four days. Approximately 130 Surgery Company employees, including 22 crews from the Austin Energy account, with additional help from 18 crews from the CenterPoint Energy and Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative accounts – a total of 40 Davey crews – responded to storm recovery efforts through February 25.

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