'Playing catch-up': New tree trimming crews expected to help with Austin Energy efforts

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- When the power in Isaac's South Austin neighborhood went out, he was worried. The temperatures had only dropped a few degrees from the triple-digit high; he worried about his eight-month-old baby and two teenagers.

While he applauded the crews for their work in ultimately getting the outage restored, he told KXAN that based on the weather events of the past few years, he originally didn't have "any confidence" in the estimated restoration time.

"Would we get a hotel room?" he wondered. "What about the breast milk in the fridge?"

Austin Energy posted on Twitter, explaining a tree had come into contact with power lines in a private yard. The outage affected around 2,300 people in the area Tuesday night.

Vice President of Electric System Field Operations, Elton Richards, said its vegetation management efforts would not have prevented the incident.

"To prevent it, I would’ve had to cut 60 feet back on either side of the powerline. I don’t think anybody wants us to lose some of our beautiful trees for that," he said.

How much do they need to trim?

Austin Energy's vegetation management program got a lot of attention from residents after an ice storm in February 2023 left thousands in the dark and cold for days. But the agency trims trees around power lines year-round, to not only prevent outages during winter storms but also to prevent wildfires and in specific areas at risk of causing problems.

According to Richards, it manages the limbs and vegetation on just over 300 circuits that deliver power to specific areas of town.

Richards said he hopes crews can attend to around 30 circuits this year -- an increase from years prior. In 2022, they trimmed along 22 circuits. In 2021, they reached 18. That year, the council allocated a much-needed $10 million dollars to the program to help them expand.

Prior to that, they had trimmed along 12 circuits in 2020 and 11 circuits in 2019.

Richards said the target is 41 circuits a year.

"My concern is we’ve just got so much trimming to do, I’m just playing catch-up really," he said.

In addition to regular management, Richards said they have to trim other circuits back further to bring them up to the industry standard. KXAN has reported in the past on regulations that prevented crews from trimming to industry-standard clearances for several years.

"Normally it’s anywhere between 4 to 6 feet that you’re trimming, but when it hasn’t been trimmed to standard in so many years, we're probably spending double the time on each one of these circuits than we should."

Richards estimates it could take four years to get all the circuits in the city back to standard.

Meanwhile, Austin Energy has been dealing with labor shortages slowing down the work.

The 2021 budget allocation allowed Austin Energy to increase the number of vegetation management crews from 30 up to 60, but they've typically been about 15 crews short of that.

Richards told KXAN it has been contracting with three large companies for tree trimming but recently signed on four smaller companies to provide crews to help fill the gaps.

"We believe with the additional crews coming on, we will be able to hit [the target] in 2024," he said.

He also explained that once the whole city meets the industry standard, each circuit should be easier to maintain.

What about your yard?

According to Richards, almost all of the trees they need to trim fall on private property or in someone's yard, but the city has an easement along those lines, giving them the right to come and provide maintenance.

People can also reach out to Austin Energy about areas of concern in their own yards.

KXAN investigators requested records showing the number of trimming requests Austin Energy received from customers over the last four years, along with the number of calls to its emergency line. The request was denied, citing customer account information protections, but the city said there were 3,956 customer tickets during that time frame.

Richards said they typically have about 120 customer requests for trimming near lines, and they try to address those in about 6 weeks.

He noted, however, they can't address trees near telecommunications lines.

What's next?

After the most recent ice storm, the city council called for an audit into vegetation management practices. Richards said they expect that to be finished later this summer or early fall.

Just last week, a city memo revealed the full after-action report for the storm is expected to be published in late August.