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LCRA recognizes employees for heroic fire rescue and telecom support during floods and service outages
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Summary
The LCRA presentation honored transmission workers Royce Arlet and James Hernod for rescuing a family during a vehicle fire, and praised telecom staff Nick Rogers and Sean Lang for enabling FBI communications in Central Texas floods; the agency also highlighted rapid telecom support to a private provider and awarded staff for the ERCOT market transition.
Unidentified Speaker, presenting for the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), recognized multiple employees for emergency response and operational work during the board update.
The presenter described a Dec. 9 incident near Buchanan Dam in which transmission crew lead Royce Arlet and transmission equipment operator James Hernod found a mini skid steer engulfed in flames, alerted a nearby family, used a fire extinguisher and a hose, and contacted emergency services. "I'm just happy we were in the right place at the right time, and that we had the equipment we needed in the training," Royce said, and James added, "I didn't even think about it. I just reacted." The presenter said the family escaped safely and damage was minimal.
The board also heard that LCRA telecommunications analysts Nick Rogers and Sean Lang, along with Joe Reed of the San Antonio FBI field office, received a certificate of appreciation for improving interagency radio communications during Central Texas flood response. The presenter said that enhanced communications allowed evidence response teams and SWAT to assist within 24 hours; Joe Reed was quoted as saying communications "worked great."
Separately, the presenter described LCRA telecom staff assisting Central Texas Telephone Cooperative (CTTC) after outages, coordinating with Guadalupe Valley Telephone Cooperative (GVTC) and account manager Gina Dodd to install equipment. Technicians Dylan Petrovski and Ruben Kanina carried out field installations while network systems engineer Jason Morgan completed programming; the presenter said CTTC was impressed and is "ready to discuss more telecom solutions with Elsewhere [LCRA]."
The meeting also acknowledged staff who completed work supporting ERCOT's real‑time co‑optimization market redesign, a multi‑year, cross‑functional effort that went live in December; the presenter praised the teams from wholesale power, regulatory, finance, digital services and project management for completing the transition.
The recognitions were ceremonial; no formal board actions or votes were recorded in the update.
