DART’s light rail and bus service returned to normal operations just before rush hour on Wednesday May 29 following severe storms which pummeled through North Texas in the early hours of Tuesday May 28. The aftermath of the storm left many residents without power, severe damage to facilities as well as broken tree limbs and other debris from the high winds. While the weather event impacted DART facilities, several DART teams mobilized quickly to try to minimize the impact to service and riders.

Throughout the day, various DART facilities as well as interlockings, blocked indicators, track circuits and substations lost power; when this happened, the team turned to generators for backup power sources. These outages have the ability to impact system-wide rail operations, causing mechanism malfunctions, which resulted in system delays.

In addition to power outages and flooding on our roadways, the most pressing challenge faced after the storm were the many trees and limbs which were fallen across the tracks, in roadways and impeding traffic. DART’s Maintenance of Way (MOW), Passenger Amenities (PA), the Train Control Center (TCC) and the Track Electrification System (TES) team worked to cut and clear fallen trees and to fix down catenaries and gate arms which were also impacted by the high winds. In addition to this it was critically important to ensure our signals, gates and crossing arms were in working order.

Because of these fallen trees and other debris, DART had to replace some of the regular light rail service with bus bridges which would take passengers to their destinations. DART Police, Fare Enforcement Officers and Transit Security Officers worked around the clock to assist riders, mobilizing across DART locations to try to assist with wayfinding and to answer questions.

While our buses and trains are on the roads from 5 AM to midnight, the work to maintain our operations is 24/7 with more than 200,000 people relying on our essential service each and ever day. The customer experience is critically important, but the overall safety of the system must be the top priority.

“DART teams quickly mobilized. We’ve been working together and have been working since early Tuesday morning to provide service to our riders,” said Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Bernard Jackson. “We estimate that most restoration will be completed by Friday while some hard-hit areas will need more time to repair. Our partners at TRE also worked diligently, incredibly the team was still able to offer service for the Dallas Mavericks Game at the American Airlines Center.”

It is important to note that the storm was unpredictable and occurred just as the usual morning rush takes place. The severity of the storm impacted our ability to communicate with our riders some of which might not be familiar with how to navigate DART’s website or GoPass app to find the latest rider alert information. In fact, part of the damage to our system was an electrical outage that took down the platform alert system which conveys important information to our riders about upcoming trains and other trip information. This, coupled with power outages at many stations left many customers understandably frustrated.

The storm was so severe, and outages were so widespread and long lasting, that the team lost the ability to see active train movement. We responded quickly to this by moving all communications to handheld radios, responding to calls on a first-come-first-served basis.  During this time, the team managed an excessively high call volume, as motorists were calling in to report broken, malfunctioning grade crossing gates.

In preparation for other weather events, the DART team encourages riders to Download the Go Pass app and utilize the rider alerts feature. Additionally, DART riders can subscribe for alerts to be emailed or received via text message by visiting dart.org/email.

Every storm is different, and after each event, the DART team comes together to understand gaps and areas of opportunity. Each lesson learned adds to our Inclement Weather protocols and helps better prepare the organization for future weather events. We appreciate the feedback that you provide to DART via social media or by calling our customer service hotline at 214-979-1111, your input- the challenges you might have faced on your commute, or the suggestions you have for areas of improvement are shared with our staff to help fuel our growth. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you.