The Peanut Gallery

We all know that 20-20 hindsight is just about perfect.

But, given what we’ve learned from officials and the gasmen on the ground, the New Mexico Gas Company is the primary culprit responsible for the extended outage. The company was apparently unprepared for the relighting phase. According to news reports, Gas. Co. spokespeople lied to the Gov. and therefore the rest of us. Local government offered the Gas Co. resources, which were refused, according to officials. In effect, a private company ignored local government and their own consumers. They had no recognizable plan for the emergency.

Off the record, Flavio says that a veteran Gas man from a Colorado energy corp., who brought 43 professionals to the community for the relighting operation, offered advice but was also ignored—despite his experience in relighting Colorado areas in the snow and sub-freezing temperatures. Apparently, his plan didn’t fit the NM Gas Co. vision, which appears to be no vision or real plan at all for an emergency.

A woman called in to Paddy Mac on KTAO, saying she lived about a block from Gas Co. HQ in Taos but was ignored by teams of “re-lighters” for days, while they were coming and going in their trucks but not stopping at her house. Many folks called in to say, they saw a team across the street or at the next house. As they waited expectantly, the team disappeared to another neighborhood. A trailer park, where several gas meters are lined up one next to the other, and visible from a major U.S. Highway, was left off the grid until late Tuesday. Mobile homes, like ancianos, are particularly vulnerable to cold due to structural causes.

Like most in the community, I have high praise for all the folks in the field, including local government and media. But, the supervisors at New Mexico Gas Company should be reprimanded and the Hussey P.R. dame dismissed. One doesn’t like to be lied to during an emergency. And, if I were New Mexico Gas Company, I wouldn’t want to be caught lying to this Governor, a former prosecutor, who appears to take offense at bullshit.

Local government and Gov. Martinez recognized the Gas Company’s hodge-podge helter skelter effort. Hence, the emergency management team authorized us to re-light ourselves. The National Guard rolled, as did numerous volunteers, and government officials. New Mexico Gas Company wasted an inordinate amount of time and money due to their own lack of organizations. Executives and supervisors should be held accountable.

We advise readers to file claims online and organize to protest New Mexico Gas Company’s upcoming request for a rate increase at the PRC. The PRC’s Jason Marks said today, according to the Journal, that he was surprised by the request, given their recent performance. Yours truly got his gas bill on Tuesday. Apparently, the billing department at New Mexico Gas Co. was not affected by a loss of heat.

Email Exchange and Responses

“Editor’s Note: We’re with you and Darren on the “self-re-lit” program. Takes courage for a public official to countermand orders from the “big utilities.” Feb. 8, 2011, Taos Friction

Eletha Trujillo:

On Feb 9, 2011, at 4:04 PM, ELETHA TRUJILLO, Taos County’s Emergency Management Director, wrote: “That’s really nice but it wasn’t Mayor Cordova’s idea. In fact, I don’t remember him at the table when we (“we” being my team) made that decision the night before.

Whaley:

I began to wonder why we heard so little from you. Apparently, the Mayor and his P.R. team seized the opportunity. Anyway, we’ll make the correction. Thanks for the update. You saved me from further cold nights.

Eletha:

We just want to be sure that everyone is safe and that every house has heat and we have no casualties due to cold temperatures. I don’t care who takes credit for any of it. I only care that we at  EOC are providing for the safety of our citizens and that their lives return to pre-Thursday morning. I haven’t kept in touch personally because I’m busy managing an operations center. Until last night I hadn’t been home, sleeping here at KCE, and a few hours in a freezing house.

The information Cathy disseminated was approved by me as the incident commander. I’d like to make it clear that no one government entity takes sole credit for anything as we have been united in our response. I appreciate the efforts of everyone and especially the Mayor’s ability to disseminate information with his resources. It has certainly helped keep the public informed. When the “pipeline police” come for me I will stand with honor and integrity in the decision we made together.

Glad you are warm.

Gary Ferguson:

One communication structure that was exercised erratically is the Neighborhood Associations. The ULCNA (Upper Las Colonias Neighborhood Association) President, David Winch (winch@taosnet.com) sent us several updates he obtained from somewhere..?

He has email addresses, maps, phone numbers and physical addresses for about 90% of the people in ULC. Other NAs might have similar databases. He also has the skills to activate this system instantly. ULCNA also has a website that David can modify as needed.

I’m just sayin’… there are resources that coulda been activated… The TAO, Taos Artists Org also has a big database. The tax assessor also knows where everyone lives…. duh. KCE reads every KCE meter every month and the Gas Co meter reader reads every meter every month. The Democrat Party knows where everyone lives, dead or alive. The 911 system seems to know where everyone lives. The USPS and UPS and FedEx seem to find most people one way or another.

I know hindsight is 20/20 but “next time” might not be that far away.

Paddy Mac put in the hours and got a lot of information “on the street”. I listened to him several times. Nick J came by once. Udall and Lujan were useless. The Governess was way too slow, like GWB and the FEMA guy… heck of a job [Brownie!].

Thank You also! People listen to you and we referred lots of people to your blog.

Jeff Northrup:

(Editor’s Note: We edit Jeff’s stuff for style and tone. He makes his points with his signs in public and at town council meetings. I insert remarks to clarify in bold.)

Bill;

As I’ve told you before, do whatever you wish to tighten and clarify my writings. I’m not a writer. Mostly what I do say is obvious stuff that needs to be written, not just spoken.

Basically, according to Jeff, the media helped some but he says but “This was all a Chinese-fire-drill, seat-of-the-pants, hit-and-miss response to a community safety emergency.”

He goes on to say, “We needed a station that all the community could turn to, all day long. Had we had such an entity, maybe the making up the rules as we went along by the public-excluded command center would have been exposed early on. Questions about how the properties would be identified/located, when crews could be expected, what preparations the dwellers needed to make, how to protect yourself and property from the cold, importance on checking the welfare of neighbors, etc. etc. could have been aired all day long. People could call in with questions and concerns; responsible and knowledgeable parties on these and other matters could have been available around the clock.”

“We needed a single, responsible source of information. Surely there are pages and pages of procedures and protocol that guide Homeland Security, Red Cross, FEMA and God knows who else to put it all together.”

(Editor: Paddy Mac assumed this role on Monday and Tuesday. It was fascinating, a rich mixture of voices, no music except for the ironic tune with lines like “C’mon Baby, Light my fire.” He seized the opportunity.)

“Yeah, our streets don’t have names, or [some] of them have the same name; or someone changes the name of a street to honor [someone]. Sometimes the numbering system is totally illogical; house numbers getting progressively larger as you drive along, then get smaller for awhile; the odd numbers on the west side become the odd numbers on the east side.”

(Editor: The County has been trying to correct this “mapping” problem for more than a decade but the neighbors doth protest.)

“There were plenty of goof-ups that happened before 8:30 last Thursday. But when all is said and done, it may turn out that the biggest mistakes were made after that fateful hour.”

(Editor: True but remember this, the Gas Co. was  keeping us and the local emergency teams in the dark from the beginning. Ironically, we’re more used to the efficient responses and quick actions of say, the KCEC Coop. If this had happened to the Coop, the trustees and the Rabbit would be tarred and feathered. The Gas Co. is out of our control at worst and disorganized at best.)

“There’s the Taos- way, and the proper way. Sometime the proper way works best. “

Jeff

Editor’s Note: Jeff may be an idealist or even an artist with a vision but government and industry are composed of flawed human beings. As we saw with Katrina and BP, whatever can go wrong probably will. As well, Taosenos are, as either Moses or Yahweh said about the Hebrews, “a stiff-necked people.” We don’t play by the rules so we must take care of ourselves and our neighbors–while insuring against the cold with multiple energy sources.

Quite frankly, the local effort regarding the outage seems successful. So far there is no reported loss of life and only a couple of fires. We learned a lot. And we got to ignore the local internecine political warfare for a time. Meanwhile, how about those Green Bay Packers? Better yet, how about those Egyptians in Tahrir Square? Huh? Mubarak is expected to resign, pronto.