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The year’s first severe cold snap is coming, along with what could end up as icy precipitation.
Boerne is making plans to manage the extreme weather.
As it turns out, those who dealt with the city’s 2021 Snowpocalypse are mainly still on the job.
Chris Shadrock is the director of communications with the City of Boerne.
“We are well-oiled machine, because we have these annual cadences of storms coming across with icy weather and cold temperatures,” Shadrock said.
For those who are un-housed, Boerne is setting up a place for them to keep warm.
“We will also have a warming center set up at the Patrick Heath Public Library, located at 451 North Main Street,” he said. “It will be open both Saturday and Sunday for folks obviously experiencing potentially homelessness, or maybe they experience a power outage, and they need a warm place to go.”
While forecasting has always been only so accurate, the forecast for the weekend includes rain, ice and eventually, some very cold temperatures.
The worst of the forecast—at this point—will be for Saturday night. But there will also be temperatures down into the teens for much of the Hill Country.
The City of Boerne has been getting prepared for this weekend’s winter storm. Shadrock said both the city and state are working together to prepare roadways for the worst.
“The streets department has a mix of salt and dirt. TxDOT will have their brine, specific to what it is they utilize. So TxDOT will maintain the state-maintained streets in Boerne and in Kendall County,” he said.
Shadrock notes that very expensive damage can result by inaction. And not everything you can do takes a lot of work.
“Are you opening your cabinets to let the warm air in, making sure you prevent your own pipes from freezing? Because that is another concern that we will experience here, especially when you're talking about potentially 36 or 48 hours, well below freezing. That is enough time for some of those pipes to start to freeze and you start to see some damage,” he said.
