Judge Curtis Parrish Talks Lubbock’s Success During Power Outages

Tuesday on KFYO Mornings with Dave King and Matt Martin, The Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish joined Matt Martin and Steve Evans to talk about how Lubbock county fared during the winter storm and power outages, what he credits it to, the COVID-19 hospitalization rate, insurance rates, and more.

The conversation started when the Judge was asked if Lubbock county had problems with water and electricity during the winter storm that recently ravaged Texas. Parrish said that the county fared very well, relatively speaking and when compared to the problems that neighboring counties had, with Lubbock having no widespread outages and only some rolling outages to conserve power. Curtis credits Lubbock's success to several things, including the work at both LP&L and the South Plains Electric Coop, as well the fact that Lubbock is not yet part of ERCOT. Curtis hopes that Lubbock will be willing to help out neighboring counties who have been less fortunate because he says that that is what West Texas does.

A lot of criticism and blame have been pointed in ERCOT's direction in relation to the power outages, and the Judge was asked if there has been any talk at the county about putting the breaks on Lubbock's move to join ERCOT. Parrish said that the county has not discussed it, as it is purely a City of Lubbock and LP&L decision for what they think is best financially and for the best interests of Lubbock citizens. He went on to say, however, that now that we have seen these kinds of disasters, we could end up seeing a stronger and more reliable ERCOT by the time that Lubbock joins it. Curtis also said that there is work being done legislatively to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again, and that if changes are made, that the cost will not be put on the consumer.

Finally, The Judge talked about the changes in insurance costs due to COVID-19 hospitalization. Parrish explained that insurance costs have gone down from 2019 to 2020 as we saw a decrease in non COVID-19 hospitalization, however, behavioral and mental health costs, likely caused by prolonged isolation, have gone up dramatically. Moving back to COVID-19, the judge was asked what he thinks about the country's move towards immunity. The Judge explained that he thinks our positive move so far has been a combination of people who have already had the virus, those who have gotten the vaccine, and people doing sensible things like wearing masks and social distancing.

Watch the full interview with Curtis Parrish in the video above.

KFYO Mornings with Dave King & Matt Martin airs weekday mornings live, from 6:00 AM to 8:30 AM on News/Talk 95.1 FM and 790 AM KFYO, online at KFYO.com, & on the free KFYO app.