Good morning.

The time is now 10 01 a.m.

on Wednesday.

Excuse me, not Wednesday, on Monday, June 22nd, 2026 in the City of San Antonio special session is now called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember Mickey Rodriguez.

Councilmember Via Gran.

Here.

Councilmember Mungia.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Galvan.

Councilmember Alderete Gavito.

Here.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Councilmember Spears.

Councilmember White.

Mayor Jones.

Here, Mary Epcorn.

Great, thanks, Madam Clerk.

This meeting is the result of a memo filed by three council members in accordance with the city charter chat section 11.

The special meeting memorandum requested a review of emergency response coordination protocols consistent with the National Transportation Safety Board parameters.

I know we've got all the right folks in the room.

Thank you to the members of the community that took the time to be here at 10 o'clock on a Monday.

Um, unfortunately.

Uh we'll answer as many questions as we can as was uh as our looter as our lawyers will probably say a hundred different ways today, though, that this is an active investigation, and there's not really a lot we're gonna be able to say, but we will try to answer as many of the questions as we as we can, understanding uh the national authorities are the lead here.

Okay, Eric, over to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh good morning, Mayor and Council.

So um, just a brief intro.

Uh Liz um and Shanna will kind of walk through the presentation both from the city perspective as well as CPS.

I'm gonna turn it over to begin uh to Frank Almadez, who is the interim CEO to kind of open up this is this is Frank's uh first up first opportunity in his current role in front of the council, and he wanted to say a couple of words.

Frank.

Yeah, thank you, Eric.

Thank you.

Uh good morning, mayor Jones and uh to the members of the San Antonio City Council.

Uh I'm Frank Almaraz, uh president and CEO on an interim basis for CPS Energy.

Uh please know that as a San Antonio native, born and raised here in our community.

I'm pleased to work with you to move our community forward.

I'm here with you today to address the important matters that you've asked us to discuss uh with us and other city partners.

I want to express my sincere commitment to a collaborative and transparent relationship with this council.

My goal is to work closely with you, our board of trustees, and the entire community to ensure that we are serving our customers with excellence.

I believe in a partnership built on mutual respect and open communication.

As I transition into this interim role, it is one of my top priorities to meet with you individually to understand your perspectives.

We've reached out to all of your offices to schedule introductory sessions, and while I have already had the pleasure of beginning these conversations, I look forward to sitting down with the rest of council as your calendars permit to hear about the specific priorities of your districts.

Regarding our discussion today, I want to note that CPS Energy has been and will continue to be as transparent as we possibly can be.

We are limited both by active litigation and the current NTSB investigation, and we will respect those limits while doing our best to make today a valuable discussion.

I appreciate your understanding and look forward to a positive and productive dialogue.

I look forward to spending some time with each of you soon.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Liz Provencio, first assistant city attorney with the city attorney's office, and I will start the briefing on the requested review of coordination protocols that will be consistent with the NTSB limitations.

And as we go to the first slide.

And hollow incident that occurred April 21st.

The three signature memo requested review of coordination protocols in response to that incident and more broadly.

Has already been alluded to, and as you are aware, on April 22nd, the National Transportation Safety Board began an investigation which limits the topics that are within the scope of the investigation from public discussion.

So that includes emergency response, which included both the City of San Antonio's departments as well as CPS Energy.

It also includes the operations and pipeline that's operated by CPS Energy.

As a result, today's briefing will include high-level NTSB preliminary report outline as well as the response to the community outside of the fire and police emergency response, and then we will also address gas safety generally.

With regard to the NTSB role and focus, it leads an independent investigation.

It's in two phases.

It's a factual phase as well as an analytic phase.

In the factual phase, they collect physical evidence, operational data, including our policies and protocols that govern that incident.

NTSB is charged in determining probable cause.

As a result, the city will not be determining cause and there will not be a discussion about cause today.

With regard to the investigation process, the pipeline accident investigation requires approximately 12 to 24 months from the date of the incident.

The preliminary report provides a synopsis of factual investigation collected during the on-scene phase of the investigation.

That preliminary report, which was released on May 21st and can be found by the public at NTSB.gov at the end investigations tab is also at your seat, so you have that handy as well.

The final report will provide a summary of relevant factual information, analysis, findings, probable cause, and safety recommendations, based on the investigation.

So moving to the May 21st preliminary report that is publicly available.

It gives an incident overview.

And on April 21st, two natural gas fueled explosions and fires occurred on Preston Hollow Drive.

The first explosion occurred at approximately 6.04 p.m.

at 15066 Preston Hollow Drive.

It caused significant damage to the residents and seriously injured three occupants.

The fire department responded about 6.09 and extinguished the fire immediately.

CPS Energy reached the scene about 6 32 p.m.

The second explosion occurred at approximately 8 25 p.m.

at a nearby residence, 15058 Preston Hollow, located approximately 65 feet away.

It injured two residents and one responding CPS Energy employee, and the second residence did not have active natural gas service.

The fire department extinguished the fire about 11:59 p.m.

The residents of both accidents' homes were taken to local hospitals for treatment.

The CPS Energy employee was taken to a care facility for evaluation where he was treated and released.

At the time of the explosions, the weather was rainy with winds and temperature of 63 degrees.

With regard to the preliminary information on the gas system, the neighborhood gas system included two-inch underground polyethylene gas mains and a one-inch polyethylene service lines.

The gas maintenance service lines were installed in 1993, and the system pressure at the time was approximately nine pounds per square inch gauge below the maximum allowable operating pressure of 33 pounds per square inch gauge.

What the preliminary report also tells us is that about 6.50 on the day of the explosions, a CPS energy employee surveyed and conducted barhole testing in the area near the accident home and located a leak in the service line at 15062 Preston Hollow, a single-family residence located between the two accident homes.

CPS Energy isolated the leak and then disconnected and plugged the service line on April 22nd.

The leaking section of the service line and a section of the gas main were removed and sent to NTSB for further evaluation.

On April 22nd and 23rd, when the NTSB investigators were on scene, CPS Energy conducted barhole testing that confirmed the presence of gas in the ground near the accident homes and the residents of 15062 Preston Hollow, located between the two accident homes.

CPS Energy performed pressure testing of the remaining gas main and service line to the first accident home.

These tests found no additional leaks.

CPS Energy also marked underground utilities at the accident site.

This effectively summarizes the points in the preliminary report that the NTSB has issued.

We will continue to cooperate with the NTSB as it proceeds through both its factual phase and its analytical phase.

And as we proceed through the investigation, it's important to note that only the NTSB can release information publicly.

They will limit it to verified facts only.

They will not be releasing any opinions or cause determinations until their final report.

Violations of these terms can lead to expulsion from the investigative process by both the city and CPS Energy.

With regard to the next portion of our briefing, we'll cover the response of the community effort in the effort to support the community subsequent to the incident.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

I'm Maria Viego Mes Deputy City Manager.

So what I'm going to talk to you about is this community response after the incident.

For this portion of the presentation, Deanne Harwick, our CPS Chief Customer Strategy Officer will also be co-presenting on the work that we coordinated between the city and our CPS Energy.

So let me start with our work right after the incident.

The San Antonio Fire Department, the police department responded to the incident.

And after that, there was a reunification center that was open at the Northeast Senior Center for families to be able to go to a safe place as we were working the aftermath of the incident, also to gather information.

So we opened that Northeast Senior Center.

We also provided transportations for those individuals that were interested.

There was not a lot of interest that particular night.

But the goal of this reunification center was also primarily to be able to provide information to the residents that were interested in getting more information about what was what was happening and also to ask questions of our CPS partners.

Now, after the event, our director of communications and engagement, Alana Reed, he was able to accompany Councilman White in three different occasions to community meetings that happened on site.

There was a lot of feedback that we got from the residents at those meetings that we took those actions and created a resource web page where the residents could obtain information, points of contact for the different questions that they had.

Based on this meetings that we also had with the community.

We also provided out of cycle debris clearance to the neighborhood.

We also provided through our public works department barricades to be able to restrict access to the street where the impacted homes were located.

The police department also provided on-site security to those properties that had been damaged to make sure that we're being secure and we didn't have individuals going into those properties.

Additionally, our San Antonio Fire Department working with CPS were able to install some methane detectors at the residents that were impacted by the explosion.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Deanne for additional information in terms of the work we did with CPS.

Thank you.

My name is Deanna Hardwick.

I'm the chief customer strategy officer at CPS Energy.

Most of you work with my team members through community engagement and the crew team.

And as you know, that our team is there to help the families and neighbors at the most difficult of times.

And you know, for me personally, I'm a member of D10, and we understood that the people living through this, it was not just a sim, not simply just an operational event.

This was something that was impacting their lives.

And we knew that our focus was to find a way to support the emergency responders and find a way to care for the impacted residents, communicate what we knew when we knew it, and find a way to stay engaged long enough to help the community move through the crisis to stability.

And we knew that customers and the community did not experience this through separate buckets of operations.

So we wanted to make sure that we coordinated with the emergency responders, mobilized our community engagement teams and customer response resources.

So we were there on site the night of the event and remained engaged for up to 12 days, including 10 days of support at the community center.

We were extremely appreciative to be able to work with the city to be there on the site and be able to put our mobile support center there at the community center.

And we knew that this wasn't, as I said, a one-night uh response.

So we were also uh did everything that we could to reduce the amount of immediate burden on the families.

So we were able to help with lodging.

We were able to find both hotel rooms as well as Airbnb support for families that needed it.

We also had saw other practical needs that would were coming up.

Uh so we found uh some animal support where we could, worked with the city to find resources as well as whoever needed uh to uh like the Airbnb finding Airbnb resources so people could take their their animals with them uh because we know as much resources to offer that mental support that people needed.

Uh so we also know that at a certain time you need food.

We helped with gift cards, we helped uh arrange someone get a phone that lost their phone during the event.

So from everything from not just gas safety but also what you need to help you through the the specific events.

Um we knew that uh, like I said, mental and emotional disruption was created to um to the neighbors in this community.

So we also worked with the Center of Mental Health and got emotional support needs through the school as well as to uh the residents where we could.

And uh while we were limited in what communications we could put out through the media and we limited what we could working with the NTSB, we provided direct outreach directly to the residents.

We had about 175 uh contact information through phone numbers and emails and uh and text numbers so we could send out messages.

You know, the messages we send for that weather's coming.

We were also able to leverage that uh to be able to send direct messages where we could about what we knew, where we were gonna be, where you could call if you had questions about being able to get your house checked out for gas safety specifically in your house.

So we were able to coordinate gas safety inspections, walkthroughs related to gas um safety as well as relighting people's pilots, help work with the city to do gas detector distribution as well as do drone assessments so that we can help do cleanup support based on any resident requests that we received.

You know, we did everything that we could because it's CPS Energy.

We do know that communities don't only judge us by the technical support but also by the emotional support and what we can do for connecting with our community.

So everything that we did, we did with urgency care, as much transparency as we could provide and accountability to keep keep that connection open with the information that we had.

I'll now hand it over to Shana Ramirez to talk about our gas system operations.

Mayor, Council, Eric, it's a pleasure to be here today.

I'm going to talk a little bit about our gas system operations.

What you have in front of you is really an annual snapshot just to give you some idea of the scope of things that we do to maintain and operate our gas system.

We have over 400,000 customers.

I'm not going to go through and read all of these, but I think that the important ones to understand is taking a look at the number of emergency responses that we have in a year.

So over 10,000.

Also the volume of utility locates that we do every single year, to almost 280,000 here.

Taking a look at the miles that we do, we do survey and understanding that the Texas Railroad Commission is our gas safety regulator.

It's the highly regulated industry and we meet all of their safety standards right now.

So I'm gonna just go ahead and move on.

Taking again a look at the system snapshot, again, just to give you guys some context of what it means to say that we maintain and operate our system.

I think that action when it matters most is the box that will interest you all the most.

We have a 30-minute average response time.

You can see that there's nearly 10,000 odor calls received, and then we give you the leak distribution.

You know, having folks call in and tell us that they smell gas really is the number one way that we determine when a leak is in a residential home or in a business.

So we try to push that message an awful lot.

When you look at the systems that are inspected, that also just gives you an overview of the sort of things that we do.

You know, Deanna talked a lot about our community outreach and education and gas safety is one of the critical elements of that outreach.

If you look at the safety starts here box, that gives you an idea again of the amount of outreach we're doing to try to help encourage folks to pay attention, let us know when they smell gas so that we can come out and take a look.

There's also some indication in the strengthening of our infrastructure of the number of things that we do every year to continue to maintain and upgrade our gas system.

When we talk about general gas safety, again, I I mentioned it before, but really making sure that you let us know when you smell gas and making sure that you call us for locates before you dig.

This is a no-cost service that we provide to folks.

They can do it at any time.

It is 811 and it's 48 hours before digging.

Um that way your underground lines can be marked.

You can call us even if you're not doing work in your yard, and if right now you don't know where your gas lines are located and you just want to know, call us at 811 or 353 help, and we can mark those lines for you.

If you see suspicious activity around gas lines, and if you're not sure if it's suspicious, just report it, use those same numbers, those same lines to call.

If you smell gas, we always encourage people to leave the area immediately and then call from a safe place to let us know.

If you think you smell gas, but you're not sure.

I always encourage everyone to treat it seriously and do the same thing.

You can always call 911, but if you call us directly, we'll be there, we'll be there very quickly.

Many of you are familiar with Gas Don, our sniffer, so it is a gas detection device that we have on a vehicle.

We will send that out to do gas detections.

A lot of times we do that at night, and if you're wondering why, it is a lot easier to get better reads at night that is in the daytime.

If you see gas down in your area, it does not mean that there is something wrong in your area.

You can always call us and ask why it's there.

It may just be preventative detection that we're doing in the area at that time.

You know, Deanna talked about handing out detectors.

Um of the things that we have done is developed an inventory of those, and we have several hundred that are left that could be handed out.

After we exhaust that inventory, we're gonna have to take a look at the cost of providing additional detectors.

But for now, if anybody wants to call, they can use that same 353 helpline to call and ask for a detector.

When we talked about symptoms, they've got them listed there.

And again, um move the person to fresh air if you're at all concerned and call for help.

As we uh move into the summer, not a lot of chance that people are going to be using heaters anytime soon, but when we move into the cooler months, um it is essential that you ventilate um rooms that have gas heaters and keep uh children and materials away from those heaters.

When you talk about gas safety, you know, CPS Energy does all that it can up to your house.

Once it's inside a house or a business, we really do ask for the residents or the business owners to help us with um, you know, reasonable maintenance of their own system.

So know where your gas appliances are located.

If you smell something around that gas appliance, um, respond in the same way.

Make sure that you are choosing professionals that are certified to deal with gas appliances when working on those.

And when we talk about pipeline maintenance, I just wanted everyone to know that we do have a fully compliant integrity management program that is in place at CPS Energy.

Um, and again, we meet all of our industry best practices and our regulator safety standards.

That concludes my presentation.

I know that you all may have questions on a lot of topics, and I am happy to um respond on behalf of CPS Energy if you have any questions.

Great, thank you for the presentations.

Um we have three members from the public that have signed up to speak.

Um you'll each have three minutes.

Uh Tony Flores.

Followed by Kevin Johnson and then Sandy Villarial.

Uh greetings, Mayor and Council members.

My name's Tony Flores.

I speaking, I'm speaking on behalf of the Preston Hollow Homeowners Association.

Uh I want to thank Councilmember White for and his staff for the meetings they've held, uh for the residents and keeping us informed as best they can despite the limited information available during this investigation.

Houses don't blow up.

There are safe havens, a place for rest, a place to relax and feel safe.

This was a catastrophic and extraordinary event.

We buy homes in neighborhoods where we want to feel safe.

As you know, everything changed for us.

Two homes were destroyed, residents were injured, families are displaced, and lives have been permanently changed.

We're here today because many residents continue to live with unanswered questions and diminished sense of security in their own homes.

Recent reports have raised concerns about aging gas infrastructure and the possible interaction between mature tree roots and underground utilities.

Residents respectfully request expert guidance on gas line safety, utility easement locations, and preventative measurements they can take to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Additionally, our residents are concerned that gas odor complaints may not be always consistently documented or accounted for.

We ask the city and CPS Energy to explain how gas odor reports are tracked, audited, and verified so residents can have confidence that every concern is properly investigated.

The continued presence of debris serves as a daily reminder of this tragedy, raises concern about the neighborhood recovery, public perception, and confidence in our community.

Ongoing discussions on neighborhood message boards and community forums continue to focus on safety, gas infrastructure, emergency response, and uncertainty.

Issues that directly affect the neighborhood where we had invested our homes and our futures.

We're asking the city to help restore this confidence.

How will you restore the confidence?

How can the safety be improved?

And above all, that's what we need safety.

This was a catastrophic and extraordinary event, and extraordinary events require extraordinary extraordinary attention.

We want transparency, accountability, communication, and a clear plan forward to restore confidence in our neighborhood.

Because every family in San Antonio deserves to feel safe in their own home.

Thank you for your time and your service and your consideration.

Thank you.

Kevin Johnson, followed by Sandy Villarial.

Good morning, Mayor Jones and City Council members.

Thank you for allowing us to speak today.

Residents of Preston Hollow Subvision were extremely frustrated with the way these cities' utilities, both CPS and SALS, appear to have ignored many calls concerning gas smells prior to all these exposions.

The NTSB stated in their initial findings that the explosions were caused by a gas leak.

Would those two explosions on 21 April have occurred if San Antonio's utility companies had responded to the numerous reports of gas smells?

After the first explosion, there didn't appear to have anyone take control of the scene.

If there was a command center on scene, it wasn't evident.

Once the leak was found and plugged, did CPS take immediate samples beyond the initial leak area to detect other areas, and if not, then why?

Homeowners were told to go back inside their homes before the second explosion occurred.

Why?

Why didn't Preston Hollow residents get evacuated after the second explosion?

Once the leak was found and plugged, did CPS take immediate sample to detect other issues, and if not, then why?

We understand investigations take time, but we are two months out and nothing is really happening so far.

Homeowners to the left and right of the two explosions are still unable to get back into their homes.

What can the city do to speed things up?

We know there's investigations, legal and all that.

We understand that.

If the final CPS report identifies tree roots as being the culprit, what is the next step?

Should tree trees along the easement be removed, and then who is responsible to make this happen?

Four of our neighbors and their pets were severely injured.

We understand others and the capacity of their jobs were also injured.

Luckily, no one was killed.

Is today the day city council will take action and initiate an aggressive inspection replacement process?

Can San Antonio afford not to initiate this process?

Five individuals' lives were drastically changed as a result of the incident.

San Antonio can and must do better.

Thank you for your time allowing us to speak.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is Sandy Villarreal.

Sandy Villarreal.

Okay.

We'll move on to council discussion.

First individual is.

Let me also let me just say there's a um thank you again for those that uh presented today and are able to provide the information that is possible at this point, as we're quite limited by what the federal authorities are have described as they undergo their investigation.

Some of the things that were raised by Mr.

Flores, though, Shana speak to process stuff.

Um, is there can we go ahead and the things that he outlined?

Um, some of those things you you did cover in your presentation, but maybe something that uh really helps to address some of the things that he just uh raised would be would be helpful.

I think I understand the question.

Um Mr.

Flores um asked um uh about um restoration of confidence and um and other items, but I want to make sure I'm answering exactly what what you're asking.

Well, I wanted to make sure you need to have to be clear.

I didn't expect you to do it right now, but I think the things that he laid out in terms of process and and reporting and how timely some of those things are done just in general from a process standpoint, maybe following up with him separately and that um homeowners association separately would be would be helpful, not only him, but also for the public that may also have those same questions.

Absolutely.

Just taking that back.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Okay, council member White.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, thank you to the folks from Preston Hollow that showed up.

Um, and I want to just begin again by thanking my colleagues for agreeing to have this this meeting um today and taking this matter so seriously as I know they they certainly do.

Um what happened on April 21st was really a tragedy that has led to weeks and months of fear, uncertainty, and uh disruption of daily life.

Uh and while we're not here today to answer the question of of why this happened, um, of course, because the NTSB is conducting that investigation.

Uh we're here today because I believe the residents of Preston Hollow deserve have deserved better over these past two months, and we're here to answer some questions and look back at how the city conducted itself, and so that in the um, you know, unfortunate event that this were or something like this were to ever happen again.

Uh we can do better.

Uh I want to before we go further, thank a couple of people in the room.

We've heard from Deanna with with CPS.

Thank you for all of your work.

Um Alana from the city uh was invaluable in um in assisting with the communication and and getting all the information uh to the neighborhood.

It was it was really phenomenal work um by her, and then from my office, Nathan.

You could stand up for just wave your hands uh for those that don't know Nathan.

Uh Nathan is with our uh district 10 team doing constituent services, and and we appointed him to be the primary contact for the neighborhood during this time, and he really did um an amazing job.

So look, Preston Hollow, as I said, deserved better.

There are so many unanswered questions as we sit here today.

Uh my office was on the ground trying to get as much information to the neighborhood as possible, um, but as was stated earlier, uh there were some questions that that we just couldn't answer.

Um, who who was in charge?

Who was talking to residents from the city?

Who was handling uh the coordination between all of the different agencies that were involved?

And so um where I want to start is a question that I got a lot um in the in the days after the event is the emergency operations system, right?

This wasn't a city-wide um catastrophe, it was neighborhood centric.

Um so in a situation like that, uh, is the emergency operations center uh activated, and if not, under what circumstances would it be?

Um good morning, Mayor, Council members.

Um the emergency active um the emergency operations center was not activated for this particular incident, um, but I do have some criteria that must be met.

The uh most incidents really don't require the activation of the EOC.

Um it is generally activated if it requires multi-department or multi-agency coordination, um, or actually when it has potential to significantly impact life safety, critical infrastructure, or essential services.

It oftentimes is activated also when it exceeds the capability of routine field operations, or has the potential to exceed our capacity, also when it requires strategic policy decisions, resource prioritization, or executive involvement, or also when it's expected to be prolonged or affect multiple operational periods, and that being the 24 hour shift, the fire department.

Okay.

Thank you, Chief.

You're welcome.

The chief just mentioned multi-agency coordination, life safety, and sort of a prolonged period of uncertainty, I guess.

In this particular case, in the days and weeks after the explosions, there were multiple agencies that were involved.

I know from the residents we had SAPD that was out there.

We had your folks uh chief from the fire department, we had CPS Energy that was on the ground.

So we did have multiple agencies out there, and as we've all spoken about numerous times, um, the citizens see that all as the government of San Antonio.

So who was in charge?

Was there a point person that was having all the different agencies coordinate during those days and weeks after the event?

Chief, if you would please, um, so that goes into the part of the NTSB investigation that we're not able to discuss at this point in time.

That'll be part of their final report.

Okay.

So I would like to uh provide further clarification.

Um as you mentioned, there are multiple agencies that are involved oftentimes, but that goes for that can be said for every single incident that we respond to.

We often respond with SAPD, with um other agencies such as public works or uh CPS energy, and in those instances, such as even uh a structure fire, it does not require activation of the emergency operations center.

Um every incident is managed using the incident command system, and it is very structured and communication pathways have been established, so hopefully that clarifies.

Well, let me ask this then.

Um, we had residents that some heard from one of the agencies saying you can go back into your homes, and again, this is not the night of we're talking three, four, five days after the event.

Some said heard that you could go back into your homes, other heard from CPS or or one of the other agencies, no, you can't go back into your homes.

Who was supposed to be disseminating that information to the residents?

Again, with respect, councilman, that's part of the NTSB investigation, so we can't speak to those specifics today.

We can speak in general terms.

Okay, so in a general scenario where you have fire, police, um, one of our utilities involved, um, who who does the coordination and and is supposed to give uh the accurate information to the citizens affected?

In general terms, we can discuss that.

Councilmember, just speaking in general terms, depending on the type of incident that we're managing, it could be at the fire department, it could be the police, the farm, it could be public works, depending again on the on the nature of the incident or the emergency that we're managing that will be that lead person for the city.

Is there anybody involved here in at the city management level that gets involved?

Yes, that's me.

That was you?

Yes, okay, or would be you.

Yes, okay.

Okay.

In terms of neighborhood centered events like this one versus citywide flooding or whatever it may be.

Um is it handled differently from an emergency perspective or from city city management's perspective?

It is always uh based, actions are always based on needs.

So it is very dependent on case specific.

Councilman, I would add that here at the City of San Antonio, we have a basic emergency plan that we utilize for different emergencies that the city of San Antonio has to handle that will identify the role of each of our departments depending on the emergency.

In the weeks after this, we've heard the daily life disruptions of the folks in the neighborhood, some were in air, put in Airbnbs.

There were all sorts of other needs that were required of the people in the neighborhood.

As far as the uh the fire department, we we manage the actual emergency incident.

Once the incident is over, and as you mentioned, there are needs that uh the community needs, those are normally addressed by the city, and that is at the city council level.

That is where we focus our communications, and it is also depending on the area impacted, it will also be messages or communication delivered by the uh city public information officer.

Thanks, Chief.

You can add two minutes.

Um we didn't freeze the time um when the chief was speaking.

So if you'd like to ask something else or say something else, Councilman White, you're free to do so.

I may have a couple more, but if my colleagues want to want to weigh in, it's okay.

Um councilwoman Alterate of Vito.

Uh thank you uh for the presentation.

Uh I was um glad to sign on to the memo urgently requesting this this meeting uh that that councilman White wanted and made a commitment to his residence on.

Uh but we know that the tragic incident that occurred in District 10 was a stark reminder of how important swift action and communication are in emergency situations.

Uh and and it's important that we understand the protocol so that way we can relay that to residents.

Uh before I begin, and I I don't have too much.

I do want to stop and thank our our first responders and our CPS energy workers who go into dangerous situations every day.

Not sure what lies ahead, but y'all y'all go in and face that anyway.

So it's it's not lost on me or or my colleagues that y'all put y'all's lives on the line each day to do that.

So uh thank you for your service to our community.

I I have a very general question that you know I've heard from residents in district seven, and I do want to stop also and thank the um residents who uh did come today to make your voice heard.

I know Monday at 10 a.m.

is an awkward time, but thank you for expressing your concern.

Um, and you know, uh all the points that you all mentioned are valid.

But when when I'm talking to to my residents about this, they want to know, hey, how do I know that this wouldn't happen in my neighborhood?

Which I think is is a very valid question.

So this question is for CPS energy.

What do you all have in place for residents to identify a gas leak proactively?

Just like SAWS has uh water leak detection um at our houses, what are what are some mechanisms that residents can fill assure that there's no gas leak?

Absolutely so uh I would say that again um the backdrop of this is all that the Texas Railroad Commission is our regulator on gas safety, um, and so therefore covers all of the gas leaks.

So they set very rigorous standards on um leak response times based on the severity of leak.

So um any time we have a leak, we have a time limit that you have to respond to that leak.

And we maintain a very satisfactory compliance with that as well as with industry standards.

So I want people to understand that we also just have the routine repair and maintenance.

Some of those stats that I went over before, running the gas operations business really is building those new systems and spending the rest of the time maintaining our current systems.

It is not a brand new system.

So there are issues that we deal with all of the time, and we do so in a very responsible manner.

We also have you saw that 30-minute average response time to calling in leak odors.

That is again one of the primary ways that we find out that there are leaks.

There are rules in that the railroad commission sets that tells us uh how often we have to survey throughout our entire system.

So we go through that and in those stats I covered earlier, was how many miles of pipe we get through a year so that we are there looking and maintaining the systems to determine if there are leaks to take a look at uh what's going on in the system and then to try to make sure that we're doing all the preventative maintenance that we can.

Awesome.

Thank you.

That's all super helpful.

But just like how we can have like a carbon monoxide detector in our house, is there anything that people can have at their house to proactively um?

There is a detector that works for natural gas, and that those were the ones that we were distributing um after the um Preston Hollow event.

That's the inventory that we have right now.

So you could you could get that from us while we have them.

We're looking at how to um fund more.

Those are commercially available, so you can also um just order one for your house as well.

Um if you get them from us, you can also ask us how they work.

One of the critical things, um, I think that's important.

Um I'll put myself in the category of um your aging customers, um, having someone show you how to use it, yeah.

Uh, so that you make sure that you know how to use it, you make sure that you maintain it in your home and you know what to do if you see it um the indicator go on.

Awesome.

And that's super helpful, and and Frank, we were looking forward to working with with you and and the CPS energy team because I think now more than ever is is that time, you know, where we can um uh use this opportunity so that people uh are aware that you all have these uh gas leak detection um monitors, I guess is what they're called.

And uh and you know, I'd love to work with you all on a distribution event for district seven residents, but I think a lot of us would uh kind of calm the uneasy that I think a lot of um as you as some of the speakers mentioned.

Yes, this was district 10 and neighborhoods specific, but it just left a lot of people feeling uneasy, right?

You know, because how how do we know it could happen anywhere next?

And so um, if if we can use some of those gas leak detection uh monitors and proactively distribute it to residents in district 10 and outside of district 10, I think that that would help.

Absolutely.

And for some folks, um, again, I think finding out where your gas facilities are located is critical.

Um a lot of times, um, if there is uh a minor gas leak, even if you don't smell it, you might see dead grass over the area.

So knowing where your gas lines are isn't is important.

Um, knowing where your gas lines are and your easement is important so that if you're digging in the area, even if you're doing just regular yard maintenance, you know where they are so that you can you can avoid that area, um, I think is also critical.

Absolutely.

Knowing where they are and looking out.

Yeah, and I think that all of that general awareness to the community um outside of this investigation is something that you know I would like to see is uh so that residents can arm themselves and feel um a little bit better.

Absolutely.

Um, but other than that, I look forward to seeing NTSB's full findings and recommendations uh once they're released.

That those are all my comments, and it.

Well, really quick.

Thanks again to Councilman Mark White for initiating this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Viecadan.

Uh thank you.

Maria, when when do we think NTSB will be completed with their investigation?

Do we have a timeline or not yet?

Well, we understand, Councilwoman, it could take 12 to 24 months.

Okay, thank you.

I just wanted to make sure.

So I want to speak just to the kind of issues at hand.

And um, Eric, I know we've talked before.

What I'd really like to see is get this new council into the EOC and talk again about what we do in emergency operations in terms of what we look at district-wide and neighborhood-wide, I think is really important.

I'm glad I see Alana and the communications team here.

While CPS and our utilities have their system, I know for me and my uh district is we have access to a text messaging system, and we use that in emergencies only uh or in big events only when we need to get the message out, and I think as we move forward, we need to talk about the roles of the council office, especially in those days after uh a neighborhood emergency event.

And how do we direct them?

Where do we provide services for them and how are we communicating with them?

Because there is technology with the um with the text messaging system, we all have our emails, some of us have newsletters, but I think what's important is understanding that they they feel that there's an um a means to communicate with the city and the services that they need.

In this case, it's an ongoing investigation, but there are all sorts of things that happen within a neighborhood community that we as council members need to kind of be on top of, and I and so I think what this gives us is an opportunity to look about how we train our staff, how we communicate, and do we need to uh look at what we've done by practice and really kind of make it more formal and policy as we go through just different changes and different crises that we see in neighborhoods.

Um, you know, and we this is um this is just a necessity as the city continues to grow, how do we continue to get the message out there?

And in the days after a uh a critical event like this, and that we are understanding that there are inconveniences and how do we guide them.

And I think that is uh our role as uh council members to kind of create that process and that program as we move forward.

So, in addition to to getting that training again, I'd like to see maybe I don't know, Mayor, if you could task it to one of the committees or we do uh a special um we we do restart the municipal utilities committee, but I think within um the different communities, health planning, uh other committees we can find that assignment there.

So uh thank you for the presentation.

Uh neighbors, thank you for coming up and sharing your concerns.

I think it's key that we continue to look at how we get that information out to you and making sure that we understand in those neighborhoods what's the easiest and fastest way to get messages to you.

So uh thank you for this, and um I I we have work to do in terms of making sure we get uh the messages out to our committee.

Uh our I mean our community after events.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Corr.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, thank you all so much for this presentation, and thank you to my council colleagues for um realizing the importance of this to put it into a three signature memo to have this special session today.

I know the time isn't ideal, but having this meeting is um more important than not, in my opinion.

So, as was already mentioned, just reiterating that there is a level of concern in the community that is now heightened after any um uh catastrophic event, quite frankly, every other situation following that, there is a sense of fear that it could be repeated.

And so I think it's incumbent upon us to make sure we are doing everything we can to address um the situation that happened, but also put into place anything that needs to be done differently to make sure that we prevent situations like happening from this one happening again, and even if it's not prevention, maybe what just Councilman Viegran was mentioning about communication.

Because a lot of times when there is fear, the best thing that we can do is communicate what is happening, and when there is a lack of communication, the fear intensifies.

So, I think again, the most one of the things that we talk about, we have these emergency operations preparation sessions, which I don't even know if the community knows about, but we actually, as a council mayor and council, discuss what um would happen in certain situations and what our responsibility is.

And the key thing that I always get away from that is it's our responsibility to take the information that is being provided to us and help communicate that out.

And so the best that better that we can create communication systems even within our entity, the better I think we'll be able to communicate at large with the residents.

I know it always gets tricky because we're there's so somewhat of what we can say and what we can't say, but at the end of the day, I think we should make sure we uh can whatever to the max amount that we can communicate, we should do that.

Um obviously keeping legal risks at um, you know, at the forefront, but I think uh if we can get into the mindset of telling as much as possible, I think that would really help our residents.

There was an incident that I just wanted to briefly mention that happened in district one a couple of weeks ago.

And I know I don't know if you guys want to comment on it or some of my residents have been asking about it, but it was on Lita Rose, and so I just wanted to use this as an example because it's not under investigation.

CPS actually was able to address the situation that occurred, but it I think it was an example of where heightened intensity occurred because there was a smell of gas, and then all of a sudden everyone and all of a sudden it was like causing panic.

So if we could whatever you can highlight, Shannon on top, like when something like this occurs, what you know, I know you already mentioned if you smell gas, call, etc.

But anything else that you can share about this would be helpful.

Absolutely, and I'm not going to speak on the specific incident simply because I'm not familiar with all of the details, but we have received um uh more calls in recently uh than in the past, with things like, and I'm generalizing, um, I see the police fire and CPS down the street, what's going on?

Um, I see Gaston, the sniffer in my neighborhood, what's going on?

Um, I know my neighbor called and y'all came out.

Do I need to evacuate my house?

So for all of those, I think there's a standard set of um of communication and information to your point that I can give to people.

Number one, know that they can always call and ask.

Um, if you smell gas and you dial 911, you are going to get fire, PD, and CPS responding.

So, why are they all there?

Probably because the caller dialed 911 rather than calling to say I smell gas, which is a perfectly acceptable uh response.

Um, although I do again encourage you, if you smell gas in your home, leave your home and call from a safe place.

Um, so generally we will be able to tell people that was the call.

Um if we find a gas leak and we repair it, um, generally what we will do is we look for the source of the leak, you repair it, and then you make sure that there's no more gas in the air in the ground, and that's how you know that you've repaired it, being very general here.

Um, sometimes you will see activity, sometimes you may not see activity because it's in a side of the house that you can't see, or because it wasn't required.

Um, much like uh what your fire department said, um, also applies to responding to gas incidents.

Um, you know, our folks get there, and it is the specific circumstances at that incident that determine what they do.

Um, but I do want people to know if they see all three of those, it's probably because 911 called.

Sometimes we're using Gaston because um we have had uh multiple calls in an area, and so we're we are doing um additional investigation.

We also use Gaston as a preventative and mitigating measure that we send out over the city all the time.

Again, if you call and you ask, uh we will give you whatever information we will give you.

CPS doesn't issue evacuation orders.

So when people call and say, Do I need to evacuate?

My general uh answer would be if you feel unsafe in your home at any time, leave.

Don't wait for someone to order you to leave.

Much like if you saw your house was on fire, don't don't wait for the fireman to tell you to leave, get out, get out of the house.

Um but uh if you are calling to say, is it safe?

We will we can always come to your house and check inside or outside of your house to see if there's gas there and let you know and reassure you, and it's no cost to you.

And so, and the one follow-up question I have for the situation was what is the difference between what the fire department can do in terms of like air monitoring system and then the barhole testing that you all do.

Well, I think I don't I can't speak to the capabilities of the fire department at all.

So I apologize, I just can't speak on that.

Um, we are generally, if you call us to your house to say, I think I smell gas, but I'm not sure.

Um, we can test in the air and we can test in the soil.

So uh without commenting about what bar hole testing does, because I'd send the engineers at my company into a tailspin if I did that.

Um but we can test in the ground and in the air to tell you if there's gas in the area.

Chief, is there anything you want to add to that?

Hello, yes.

Uh I would like to add that fire department capabilities as far as um hazmat detection.

Our monitors are only for open air.

We do not um have the capabilities that uh CPS may have.

I'm not I can't speak on you know what uh devices they utilize, but I can say that our detections um equipment is very um, I can't say basic either.

It's just air monitoring.

Yeah, it's different.

It's the level of depth that you guys can get to.

So it's limited.

So I I think it might be helpful even just for the community to do one pager of like this is what the fire department can do, this is what CPS can do, this is what SAPD does, just so that they have a better understanding of to the point where if they call 911, this is what is going to happen.

This is the amount of services they're going to get.

But just for my community, if we could get a little bit more detail and follow-up from the team on this incidence at Leader Rose, I think that would help.

Um that way, the more we're able to talk to our residents about situations occurring, the more we're able to assure them that we do have the right things in place uh in the event something occurs.

But thank you all for your work on this, and thank you for the conversation, and um thank you to the residents that came out and spoke and uh yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilmember Castillo.

Thank you, and thank you, uh City Leadership and CPS Energy for the presentation.

I'd uh like to acknowledge the tragedy that did occur, and I sympathize with the individuals that live in the neighborhood.

I um cannot understand um what it's like to live in a neighborhood where such a tragedy occurred.

Uh, and I wanted to commend you all, Mr.

Flores and Johnson, for your leadership and being engaged and involved in asking the questions in terms of what occurred and how can we move forward better together.

Uh and I also want to commend council member Mark White for moving with urgency to convene counsel to ensure that his constituency and all San Antonio residents receive the information available to provide assurance that uh there are systems in place in terms of an emergency.

Uh and one thing that uh I always emphasize whether uh we are at the EOC or talking about the risk mitigation plan is that the work starts before the disaster hits.

Uh and knowing that these systems are in place and that there uh are opportunities and that interagency communication is vital, but what we know would occur is it is uh a tragedy, and we have an opportunity to one better understand.

And then, of course, how can we continue to streamline that communication?

Um one question that Mr.

Fold is asked, and I'm curious as well.

Um, and if it's something that I have to receive offline, I understand.

Um, but the point in terms of roots impacting gas lines, right?

I think in terms of a tree hitting a power line and the uh CPS energy trimming that line, uh offline, I'd like to understand in terms of if there is an instance in which a resident identifies or an arborist identifies that a route may be hitting a gas line.

What is that next step and what resources are provided uh to address that issue, right?

Because one, I want to ensure that we're not putting an arborist uh in a potential uh risk, right, uh, with removing that route near a gas line, um, but also just understanding so that way we can communicate to our constituency on what is the role and responsibility and what resources are available, right?

We know uh addressing trees just to trim them is very expensive in the thousands.

Uh and I can't imagine the cost associated with something with a risk by potentially being near in close proximity to a gas line.

So uh offline, if we can get a briefing on what uh resources andor steps are available for a constituent, I would appreciate that.

Um but again, just wanted to uh uh thank the constituents for your advocacy, being uh the boots on the ground and communicating to your neighbors on what you're asking, uh, and also ensuring that everyone's safe.

So just uh appreciate your leadership and grateful for Councilman uh Mark White for bringing us together to to uh uh better understand uh what the path for it is here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman White, go ahead on the second round.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um I want to highlight what uh councilwoman Via Gran said.

I I do think we should think about um some sort of process or plan we can put in place to have a more uniform communication system going forward.

Um again, uh a Alana was great, but it did feel like in those first three, four, five, six days afterwards that the council, our council office was sort of um out there on our own to to a large extent.

And um, you know, we we pulled together that that um that neighborhood meeting on that uh on that empty lot y'all y'all have out there, and literally that that meeting was put together 12 hours advanced notice, and there were 70 or 80 folks there, and when you're getting questions like um, are we safe to be in our homes on that street?

That is a uh a situation I don't think any San Antonio resident should be should be put in.

So I what what councilwoman core said when when we go to the emergency operations center and we do our our um our usual you know thing that we do there, I think we do maybe we can add to that presentation, Eric, you know, what we do when we have a neighborhood-centric issue like this and what the chain of command is and who's gonna be doing the communicating and all of that.

I think that would be very helpful.

Um I think it was brought up that there's an incident command system and an emergency operations center.

Are these two different structures or or systems that are in place that that we have here, or did I misunderstand that?

Councilman, the incident command system is a training that our fire department and police department go through to respond to an emergency, so that um takes into account logistics, who's responding, who's the um individual in command of the incident, that that's what the chief was referring to.

What what I reference as far as the emergency plan, that is a plan that we have to respond to our emergencies as part of our EOC.

We have other documents like Councilwoman Castillo mentioned the house for mitigation plan.

So there's several protocols that we follow for um when we respond to emergencies and when we activate the EOC.

Okay, and maybe this again we can add to to that presentation when we go to the EOC so we can have a better understanding of that going forward.

Um CPS mentioned knowing where the gas lines are, both on your property and in the easements.

The residents did ask me for that for an uh uh a map or an overview of where everything is.

I was told we couldn't get it at the moment, but I don't know if now in in the in the weeks ahead that's something that we can do so that they know in their neighborhood where everything is.

Um, so what we can do is we could provide it for any resident for their own gas lines.

Um for security reasons, we would never produce a map of an entire gas system, but it would essentially be a map of how to disrupt that gas system.

Um but for each person's own property we can give them their information.

Okay, and so um we can have them, if they would like that, maybe contact Deanna, we'll get a letter out and get them that information.

Absolutely.

Okay, that would be great.

Thank you.

Um on the cleanup issue.

I I heard this morning there's one of the large trees is just laid out in the easement somewhere.

Maybe these are being preserved for for legal purposes.

I don't know, but I know that there's still some cleanup for the neighborhood that needs to be done.

Where are we on that?

Um I'm not sure I'm not sure on the cleanup, but I did want to um just uh let everyone know, and especially since the the public speakers were uh commenting that the two houses that are still standing um are being preserved um through a court order that plaintiffs council made.

CPS has no um objection to the demolition of those of those homes.

Okay, so so that's that that's a legal matter.

Well, really, in in my last thirty seconds here, I I wanna again I I appreciate what the city did.

I appreciate you know what CPS did um in the days after, fire departments certainly, um, for for the brave men and women that that were out there on that particular night.

Um but but let's not let's not just forget about this now in the weeks going forward because um that would be a disservice uh to our community.

Everybody in this room knows there are things that we could have done better in the days and weeks after.

Uh and that's the city, uh that's CPS, that's all of our individual departments, that's everybody that was involved in this.

So if in the unfortunate event uh this happens somewhere down the line again in San Antonio, and of course, let's try to make sure that doesn't happen.

But if it does, let's learn from this uh so that we can better serve our residents in such an occasion in the future.

Thanks, Mayor.

And anyone else like to speak.

Okay.

Thank you again for the presentations.

Um let me uh let me also just take the time to thank a critical partner that um we have not spoken a lot about uh is BAMC.

Uh this happened on Tuesday.

I went to go visit those victims on a Friday, and I was thankful for the world-class health care that those individuals received.

It was also um in that interaction though that I engaged with some family members that were that really speak to the the point about kind of how do we how are we better communicating certainly the night of, but also with those family members that may be impacted.

Um one of the uh the family members actually they're from out of town, and they had a very difficult time getting information.

I know Maria, we have we've talked about this, I know Eric we've also talked about this, but the communication plan for those family members that may be impacted and are just trying to get details about what happened and how they can frankly just even go locate their family member.

Uh, this these were the uh the family members of the of the second at the second home, the atchoas.

Um, and so thankfully we were able to, when I flag this for Rudy, get them um housing help so that not all that was coming out of pocket.

Um, but I think it it there is some additional kind of in crisis comms help that needs to be augmented for the council offices.

Um so you know, if they don't know that their brother lives in district 10, there still needs to be some phone number, for example, that they can they can reach out to, whether it be the non-emergency police line and those folks answering that call, then have the basic information about this is where your family member is, this is how to reach them.

I mean, the show has talked about having to call around to various hospitals to figure out where their family member was was, and that's certainly not where anybody needs to be in ever, but not in a moment like that.

Um so the the comms piece in terms of how we're helping their family members be also connected to resources, Muddy, as an important part of this, and I want to make sure that we um do that.

Um in terms of the um the the follow-on action, uh Councilwoman Nivegran just mentioned, I think there is an effort, I think there is value in looking at what a stronger communications piece looks at in the context of public safety.

So I would ask councilwoman core, chair of that committee, uh, to work closely with certainly obviously this case study, uh, what happened to district 10, but as in working with the CNE team to figure out um even before we go to the emergency operations center what is if it's an incident, this is what is this is what happens.

If it's an emergency, this is how it's defined, and we all have that um uh for easy reference.

So I'll leave that to the to the public safety committee to take that on.

Thank you.

Okay.

Eric, unless you have something you'd like to add.

Yeah, I was just gonna add Mayor, the the um, and and you you just mentioned part of it, uh, several council members also talked about it, but um we do need to schedule our annual EOC training uh work exercise for the mayor and council, and I I do like the um I do like the idea, and it's certainly pertinent to look at a neighborhood-centric scenario um with with either utility or or maybe other things, and um and what's the role of the council office and how does it interplay in that communication and the wraparound support potentially for family members.

Um so I think I think that would be a good scenario for us to to work on and we'll get that scheduled.

Thank you, Eric.

Okay, I'll take us into executive session.

The time is now 1114 a.m.

on Monday, June 22nd, 2026.

The City Council of the City of San Antonio will now meet in executive session to consult with the city attorney's office pursuant to chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code and to deliberate or discuss the following items: economic development negotiations pursuant to Section 551.087, the purchase exchange lease or value of real property pursuant to section 551.072, and legal issues related to litigation involving the city, emergency preparedness, and collective bargaining, all pursuant to section 551.071.

No official action was taken in executive session.

The time is now 1218, and this meeting is adjourned.