ABILENE TEXAS (KTAB/KRBC)- Local real estate group Barnett and Hill own roughly 320 apartments in the Abilene area. When the February freeze hit they were on prevention and damage control for each and every household.
“I felt like I knew cold weather but of course I’ve never seen anything that was this long and this hard and certainly here in Texas.” Said Barnett and Hill broker, John Hill.
For over 48 hours many tenants faced dark homes with no heat and at times no water. With the power grid being a State affair Property managers like Cole Northcut focused attention on tenant safety and then preventative measures for water pipes.
First calling residents to remind them to leave faucets on a drip, cut back on electricity but don’t have it so low that the pipes freeze, and if necessary, call to have your water temporarily shut off.
“We were always responding in some way or talking to people to make sure that things were getting resolved.” Said Hill
Though, according to Northcut they still face thousands of dollars worth of plumbing work, it could have been much worse. They attribute this success to the co-operation of their tenants as well as the hard work of their maintenance team.
“Shout-out to our maintenance team. Each of those waterlines is under 2-3 feet of snow and having to dig through all that snow you know, tirelessly, they didn’t take a day off.”
