EL PASO, TX - Last year, the first week of February brought some of the coldest temperatures El Paso's ever seen.
And with it, came problems El Paso's never had to deal with.
The sub-freezing temperatures paralyzed the city and had lasting effects on some of the things we rely upon most like water and electricity. Thousands were left without both for days at a time. The first domino to fall was El Paso Electric.
"All local generation that the El Paso Electric Company had here besides the Copper plant failed," El Paso City Rep. Cortney Niland said. "So that puts us at a huge risk. There was a lack of preparedness that really was unacceptable."
A report from the Public Utility Commission of Texas and a third party investigation both confirmed that the utility was not adequately prepared for the cold conditions.
Both El Paso Electric and El Paso Water Utilities have said that they've taken steps to ensure history doesn't repeat itself.
"You actually see all of the insulation that has been added to the system," El Paso Electric's Richard Fleager said. "So we've protected the system down to a much lower temperature than had previously been planned."
"We all learned lessons from the February event," El Paso Water Utilities' John Balliew said. "We want to make sure we are implementing the lessons we learned to improve our services in the future."
While the freeze may have brought about major headaches for utility companies, it turned out to be a godsend for many local businesses.
"It was a record year," Northeast Plant World Nursery Manager Michael Griffith said. "Due to the fact that we sold more plants, more palms, just pretty much more of everything. We sold truckloads and truckloads of palms."
Most of those trees were sold to Las Palmas Marketplace in east El Paso, whose namesake stems from the giant plants .
"The new owners of the place kind of joked about it when they got the price to do this," property manager Mike Chesak said. "They said maybe we'll just name it 'Less Palmas' and take some of the palm trees out."
And that's exactly what crews were doing last week, a year after the majority of their palm trees froze to death.
"You know to find 40 foot palm trees is kind of hard," Chesak said. "We actually found some here locally. I'm a native of El Paso and I like to buy local anytime I can. So we're gonna clean out the nursery stock here in El Paso."
The record year for local nurseries, plumbers and heating companies came on the dime of those who spent on unforeseen expenses. But, they too, could end up benefiting from the freeze because El Paso City Council is now trying to get El Paso Electric to lower its rates.
"I would say that the freeze last year certainly was a catalyst for us to look into their operating procedures," Niland said.
El Paso Electric says that the freeze and its current rate case with the city are two separate issues.
But Niland says that the two are linked.
"I expect someone whose charging the city of El Paso among the highest rates in the state to have taken every step possible to prevent us from a rolling blackout," Niland said.
Niland has acknowledged El Paso Electric's efforts of prevention but she says...she's determined to make sure El Pasoans aren't over-charged for electricity.
"If something positive can come from something negative and we can all learn a lesson and do what's in the best interest of this community," Niland said. "Then at the end of the day, I think we're all glad that we've gone through the process. and maybe something really great came out of it."
But it may be a long while before this issue is settled.
Wednesday, El Paso Electric filed its rate case with the city. In it, the company actually requested that its customers pay, on average, about $4 a month more. On top of that, El Paso Electric has requested that the city pay them nearly $9 million for legal costs. The city is expected to continue this fight.
Ultimately, this rate case is likely to be settled by the Public Utility Commission of Texas by the end of the year.
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