I Survived the Great Gas Panic … of Thursday.” This phrase on a T-shirt made the rounds on social media in North Texas in late August and early September, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
But it was no laughing matter for CoServ, as vehicles waited 10-cars deep at pumps that weekend and gas stations started to run out of fuel. The panic-caused shortage was real, and an extended gas outage was a distinct possibility.
Failure to fuel up our vehicles would have limited our ability to serve CoServ Electric members and CoServ Gas customers.
CoServ didn’t want to take any chances. Employees were encouraged to limit travel to what was necessary and work-related. CoServ took the additional step of securing emergency fuel and providing a tanker to dispense it on its main campus in Corinth.
To ensure that fleet vehicles had enough gas to serve members and customers, CoServ purchased 2,400 gallons of diesel and 2,000 gallons of unleaded on Sept 1. The following Friday, CoServ purchased an additional 1,200 gallons of diesel and 1,200 gallons of unleaded.
ES&H, CoServ’s environmental cleanup contractor, provided the Retif Oil & Fuel tanker and a driver to pump the fuel and clean up any possible spills.
“They really stepped up to help us out,” said Randy Hall, CoServ’s Director of Job Training & Safety. “People may have panicked because of social media, but CoServ didn’t.”
On September 14, after all the fuel had been dispensed, the tanker was released–and so was the driver, Cameron Thompson.
“He stayed here at a hotel the entire time, and he was ready to go home to be with his family,” Randy said. “He said his wife was starting to miss him.”
