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Table 2.18, Planning Area Severe Lightning Vulnerability Summaries <br />Community Lightning Vulnerability Summaries <br />Mountain City Surface power lines create a vulnerability to natural hazards. In Mountain City’s <br />recent history, there have been several undocumented incidents (resident <br />testimony without data to provide for analysis purposes) that have resulted in <br />transformer damage that have affected the community’s access to power for <br />several hours. There is no generator back-up in City Hall, impacting continuity <br />of operations for the City Government. <br />Niederwald is a community with 10-15% of the jurisdiction made up of <br />City of Niederwald <br />Risk Assessment <br />undeveloped tracts that can develop large amounts of brush that could become <br />vegetative fuel that ignites due to lightning strike. Due to the intermingling of <br />residences with undeveloped areas, there is a risk to structures and those who <br />reside within them. Periods of drought can also increase the dryness of the <br />vegetation, also increasing the chance of ignition during lightning strikes. <br />According to community testimony, there have been several lightning events <br />City of San Marcos <br />in 2016. During one of these events, a lightning strike ignited a structure <br />fire. There are also communications towers in the community that are at <br />risk for strike within the community, however they have lightning protection <br />equipment. In addition, the portion of the power lines in the City that are <br />mounted on poles are also susceptible to lightning strike, and could result in <br />electrical outage. <br />Additional community testimony indicated, that while not occurring within City <br />Limits, there was an incident that occurred at a nearby fire training academy <br />where 2 fire students were struck by lightning while training in an open field. <br />The proximity and severity of this event created a concern for safety from <br />death or injury during lightning events. <br />The presence of dead trees, a result of a past drought, creates a vulnerability of <br />City of Uhland <br />those trees acting as fuel for a lightning strike that could ignite a wildfire. This <br />in combination with the amount of areas where residential structures border <br />areas of wildland, creates an increased risk of structures igniting as well. <br />Lightning strikes could also impact the electrical power to the community <br />because 80 percent of the power lines are on poles, with the exception of <br />recent new subdivisions which utilize subsurface electrical utilities. <br />According to community testimony, there have been structure fires ignited as a <br />City of Wimberley <br />result of lightning strikes. Lightning has also caused surges to auto-dialers that <br />service alarms for the waste water monitoring system that provides emergency <br />notifications. Lightning has also caused damage to critical infrastructure, as <br />well as blown out community power lines. The community has dead trees <br />that are at an increased risk of igniting in the event of a lightning strike. <br />The community is predominantly serviced by power lines on poles that are <br />susceptible to lightning strike. <br />City of Woodcreek Due to a history of lightning events causing tree damage, Woodcreek is very <br />diligent in enforcing their ordinance for removing dead trees from residential <br />properties. There is a water tower located in the hills that is susceptible <br />to lightning due to its location at a higher elevation. The impact upon this <br />critical infrastructure would directly affect every citizen in Woodcreek if water <br />availability was impacted. <br />48 <br /> <br />