How a Wichita Falls company saved Big D

They go about their work without much fanfare in a building tucked away on Pleasant View Drive in north Wichita Falls. More than 100 local workers manufacture an assortment of seals, clamps and couplings for pipes.

These are not products most people think about, even though most people live right on top of them. They are the mundane parts buried in the foundations of homes and buildings that deliver water to the faucets, spigots, washers, toilets and icemakers.

Unglamorous as their work might be, one day in February the workers at PowerSeal Pipeline Products Corporation became superheroes.

Cullen Allred, the company's National Territory Manager, was on a business trip in Florida when he got a call from the City of Dallas utilities department.

Allred recalls the voice on the other end was "quivering."

"They wanted to know how many repair clamps we had in stock," Allred said.

The historic February winter storm had struck and Big D was frozen solid. Water pipes were breaking everywhere and harried utility crews were answering 80 to 100 breaks a day.

"They had used up nine months of repair stocks in just two days and were desperate," Allred said. "We don't keep stocks, so I talked to my boss. We decided to shut everything down and work only on Dallas. They were in dire straits."

So PowerSeal went into high gear, working non-stop to crank out six weeks worth of product in a week that matched Dallas' unique requirements. They churned out about 1,400 clamps. Dallas sent up a truck to rush back the vital parts to ensure water flowed to 1.3 million households.

"We came through for them. They were very thankful," Allred said.

PowerSeal is one of just four companies that makes similar parts to keep water flowing across the U.S. They also serve foreign customers.

Allred said the plant was already busy before the winter storm. He thought the COVID-19 pandemic might slow things down, but it didn't.

"We had a month's lull then it got busier than I've ever seen it. Construction never stopped, he said.

His company makes parts for new construction as well as for repairs.

The Dallas emergency was not the first time PowerSeal has been called to the rescue. Allred said the company also went into overdrive after a disastrous earthquake hit Los Angeles in 1994.

PowerSeal was formed in 1985 when the late Edward J. Powers purchased the assets of the Special Products Division of the Clow Corporation and set up shop in Wichita Falls. It remains a family-owned business.

In addition to making parts for water pipes, PowerSeal makes parts for fluid and gas distribution construction industries and agriculture. The City of Wichita Falls is a customer, too.