BOLIVAR — More than 60 residents of Bolivar Peninsula crowded into the water district’s offices Wednesday afternoon for a public meeting.
They were seeking answers not only about the water supply, but about the overall recovery effort from Hurricane Rita.
“I’m going to tell you what I know,” said Jennifer McKnight, general manager of the Bolivar Peninsula Special Utility District, “and I hope you’ll share it with everyone else.”
She had a mixed report for the peninsula’s students.
“If you’re a student at Ball High School, the buses will be here tomorrow morning, and you’re going to school,” she said.
For students at High Island schools and at the Galveston Independent School District’s elementary and middle school, the news might not have been much better.
“School won’t reopen until the power comes back on,” McKnight said, “but when it does reopen, they’re looking at possibly going to school on weekends and taking away some holidays.”
When will the power be back on?
“We’re saying, quite frankly, that it could be several weeks,” said Mike Rodgers, a communications representative for Entergy Texas.
By midday on Wednesday, Entergy had nearly 372,000 customers in four states without power. The company had restored electricity to nearly 400,000 customers.
“We’re having to put our entire transmission system back together again,” Rodgers said.
The company had hundreds of transmission lines and substations out of service. It had thousands of broken utility poles.
And it had more than 13,000 workers dedicated to putting it all back together.
“What we try to do in any restoration is to concentrate on the most populated areas first,” Rodgers said. “Generally, the ones who are connected last are the ones scattered out here and there.”
As to the water supply, McKnight said, the district hoped to lift a boil water order as early as today. She said her staff had taken water samples and hoped to have results back this afternoon.
“We have every reason to believe they’ll come back fine,” she said.
And soon, she said, the district will be bringing online additional facilities that will more than double its capacity.
“I’m not telling you to go out and start using a lot of water,” she said, “but I am saying that we might be able to end rationing pretty soon.”
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Finding Answers On The Peninsula
• Parents with questions about the Galveston Independent School District’s plans for working with students on the Bolivar Peninsula may call the administration office at (409) 766-5100.
• Community relations officers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency began going door-to-door in Bolivar Peninsula communities Wednesday. The agency will have a mobile office from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at the Precinct 9 Justice of the Peace Office, 946 Noble Carl Road in Crystal Beach.
