Special Questions

Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey

Data were collected March 16–24, and 110 Texas manufacturers responded to the survey.

*Respondents were asked not to include days where their firm was completely shut down—only days when their firm was operating at limited capacity.
NOTE: 108 responses.

NOTE: 106 responses.

NOTES: 94 responses. This question only posed to those who reported they had February revenue loss as a result of Winter Storm Uri.

NOTE: 108 responses.

NOTES: 69 responses. This question only posed to those who were previously subject to the state-mandated mask mandate.

NOTE: 108 responses.

NOTES: 6 responses. This question only posed to those who were previously subject to state-mandated capacity restrictions.

Special Questions Comments

These comments have been edited for publication.

• Winter Storm Uri's impact to revenue is still being determined.
• The ice storm’s impacts on production raw materials will continue from many vendors. It’s 30 days so far, and it likely will have impacts until May.

• We have facilities in several states. Some had mask mandates and some did not. Also, from a power and water perspective, some facilities maintained power and water and some did not. We had damage at several facilities, but none of these will require insurance filings as they are below deductibles.

• Our business is nationwide with oil companies. They continued to order equipment from outside our area [during the winter storm here], and we worked remotely with our salespeople. The shop was closed; however, we did ship orders once the freeze was over.

• We shut down to conserve both electrical energy and gas for overall pressure and deliverability to others [during the storm]. We shut down for three days due to access and ingress and egress. We have fully recovered. As to COVID, we are still maintaining strict limited access to our facility, internal masking, social distancing, temperature monitoring of employees and guests, questionnaires and hand sanitation. Given the governor’s “open up” command, spring break and the influx of COVID-positive people into Texas, we will maintain this and revisit this policy in 45 days.

Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey

Data were collected March 16–24, and 275 Texas business executives responded to the survey.

*Respondents were asked not to include days where their firm was completely shut down—only days when their firm was operating at limited capacity.
NOTE: 270 responses.

NOTE: 262 responses.

NOTES: 151 responses. This question only posed to those who reported they had February revenue loss as a result of Winter Storm Uri.

NOTE: 269 responses.

NOTES: 208 responses. This question only posed to those who were previously subject to the state-mandated mask mandate.

NOTE: 269 responses.

NOTES: 82 responses. This question only posed to those who were previously subject to state-mandated capacity restrictions.

Special Questions Comments

These comments have been edited for publication.

• We are a pipeline company, and the power problems directly impacted our producer customers where they couldn't deliver.

• The primary loss for [us] was in the area of refined products, which will not be made up.

• All face guards are remaining in place, but masks are based on the employees’ and customers’ discretion.

• We are an office, so masks were mandated for client interactions. They are still recommended but no longer required.

• Since we were [working remotely] prior to the winter storm, we continued in that fashion. Many in Texas used the office as a refuge for power and water when they lost those services at home. This was true in our Houston and Dallas offices. Austin was offline related to power restrictions. Many could not work at home with no power and thus no internet. We believe there was some impact, but it appears somewhat minimized with office access in locations noted. There was no impact on operations outside of Texas.
• The opening up of everything at 100 percent capacity and removal of the mask mandate is going to create another spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths. (By the way, I am a Texan.) Then on top of that, Texas Attorney General Paxton is suing Austin for continuing a mask mandate. (Gov. Abbott's order included "blocking" cities from having mandates.) Politics in Texas will continue to hurt the economy by creating another COVID-19 spike that will cost more in health care than the requirement to wear a mask and social distance.
• Employees could not safely report to work. Everyone experienced internet and power outages, and many had no water. These conditions made the remote-work operations highly ineffective.
• We didn’t change our COVID-19 protocols based on the governor’s mandate. We have practiced social distancing, but employees have not been required to wear masks inside the office, and coming in to the office is completely voluntary; so, about one-third of our team has been coming in to the office, and the rest have been working remotely.

• Given our business is commercial banking, our lost revenues are only attributable to decreased customer transactional business during the winter storm outages. The clock keeps ticking on the interest meter for booked loans.

• We are able to function, but quality of services to customers has been impacted as we have been unable to obtain necessary repairs to back-up systems to restore full functionality to our phone system. We must use an external vendor, and there is limited availability of vendors, and the vendors have limited capacity. We're not sure of the time frame for repairs.
• The winter storm caused us to shut down for seven days.
• Although our business was not subject to the state-mandated mask requirement, our clients' businesses were. The mask mandates have not impacted our business as much as the increased vaccinations have positively impacted the outlook and activity level, which should result in increased revenue.
• [Regarding the] damage to equipment, one question should be: How much time and money is it costing to fight the insurance company over damage being caused by an act of God or damage due to negligence on the part of the PUC [Public Utility Commission] and ERCOT [Electric Reliability Council of Texas]? It's been a finger-pointing circle as of late.

• We will likely open to 100 percent capacity in fall 2021 but not until that time.

• While the winter storms had minimal effect on us as your questions were asked, please know that we were devastated by the winter storms. Our food inventory plummeted to dangerous levels due to the havoc wreaked on our supply chains and the food manufacturing plants where we source our food supplies. In addition, we are seeing dramatically higher shipping costs and other associated costs.
• As a medical facility, we will continue to mask employees and patients.

• We anticipate returning to "normal" as the population reaches near-herd immunity.

• Most of our staff are working from home, so the power outages for our office did not have a significant impact. But, most of our staff had power outages or water issues, or both, at their homes that significantly affected productivity.

Texas Retail Outlook Survey

Data were collected March 16–24, and 54 Texas retailers responded to the survey.

*Respondents were asked not to include days where their firm was completely shut down—only days when their firm was operating at limited capacity.
NOTE: 53 responses.

NOTE: 51 responses.

NOTES: 41 responses. This question only posed to those who reported they had February revenue loss as a result of Winter Storm Uri.

NOTE: 53 responses.

NOTES: 43 responses. This question only posed to those who were previously subject to the state-mandated mask mandate.

NOTE: 53 responses.

NOTE: 9 responses. This question only posed to those who were previously subject to state-mandated capacity restrictions.

Special Questions Comments

This comment has been edited for publication.

• Total revenues are down almost 20 percent. Three departments are down significantly more: service centers,collision centers and preowned vehicle sales.