Just more than a month into her term, Gov. Susana Martinez has seen her stance on immigration criticized and has come under scrutiny for her nominee to head the energy department.

The biggest test of her gubernatorial chops, however, came from someone far less political: Mother Nature.

As a dramatic cold front descended on the state early last week, Martinez's administration marshaled the usual Department of Transportation resources and got ready for what, at the time, seemed to be just a bad winter storm.

By the time the situation escalated to include a major natural-gas outage, burst pipes and angry customers who spent as many as six nights with no heat, Martinez was commanding other forces — among them, officials from Homeland Security, Public Safety and Communications departments. She took control of the situation from New Mexico Gas Company, visited the affected areas and got on the phone with FEMA.

Did she do enough, soon enough?

The opinion varies, but it's clear the anger many cold New Mexicans felt was more directed at the gas company than the new governor.

A cold week

The almost unprecedented arctic cold hit New Mexico two Mondays ago, with the cold temperatures coming early in the week and the gas outages starting that Thursday. By that Friday, more than 25,000 customers had no heat, including some in high-elevation enclaves like Taos.

Martinez's first State of Emergency declaration came that Thursday, directing state agencies to focus on responding to the storm. The declaration sent workers home early and told people to conserve energy by turning off appliances and turning down the heat. The administration was in contact with FEMA that day about the situation, and has been ever since, officials said.

On that Thursday, gas company officials said it would take them take two days to relight the pilot lights of those homes without heat.

Martinez took the company's word for it — but not for long.

By Saturday, the governor had ordered 56 National Guard soldiers and airmen to help with relighting. By Monday, she had dispatched 300 more troops, plus 44 officers from the Albuquerque Police Department and 15 state police officers.

By then, grateful residents were applauding those who helped restore the gas, but were mad that their communities were selected for the outages, frustrated at the response time and worried about how to pay for it all.

Hot-and-cold reactions

For Martinez, a former district attorney who oversaw an office of 70 people before becoming governor in January, the situation that landed in her lap was monumental.

Once she realized the gas company was not up to the job, her work included quickly getting the right people to the right places in Northern communities like Taos and Española, with which many responders were not familiar. It included getting the word out to the public and to the federal government about the crisis and ways to save energy. Ultimately, it required some political prowess and diplomacy at a time when tension and fear were high.

Many involved said Martinez did well once she took control.

"I can't see what she could have done better," said Taos Mayor Darren Córdova. "I would give her an A-plus."

"I am so impressed with the governor's administration on the timeliness and the open communication they established," Córdova. "There was never once where I had to wait for a call or couldn't get through to anybody."

Amid the gripping cold and the fear surrounding the storm, Córdova said he knew things would be OK when he saw the National Guard Humvees rolling into town. Up to that point, the gas company had been able to relight only 8 percent of homes.

"I clearly knew our community was in good hands," said Córdova, a Democrat whose town during the gubernatorial campaign was the site of an anti-"Susana la Tejana Rally."

In Española, Mayor Alice Lucero said residents would have been worse off had Martinez not been so proactive.

"Had it not been for her intervention, I think we really could have been off a lot longer," Lucero said.

"With the information she had, she did the best she could," she added.

Lucero, a Democrat, said Martinez was in touch with her on Thursday and said then that she wanted to deploy the National Guard.

"Unfortunately, it was the gas company that failed to take her up on her offer for help," Lucero said.

But there were still complaints about the situation.

The state Democratic Party criticized Martinez for her "poor handling" of the crisis. Angry residents said they wanted more information sooner. Some wondered why more information wasn't coming from the Governor's Office about claims for damages.

Others said the federal government should have been notified quicker — something Martinez officials shake their head at, as they were in contact with FEMA starting the first Thursday and are in the process of doing the paperwork for a disaster declaration, something officials say takes time. By comparison, for the major snowstorm that hit New York on Dec. 26, the governor there didn't request a major-disaster declaration until Feb. 8.

U.S. Rep. Ben Luján early in the first week of the crisis said he was hoping Martinez would have gotten an emergency declaration from FEMA.

"I certainly hope one comes. It's clear it can only come from the state of New Mexico through the Governor's Office. We believe there's some other support that could make itself available if a formal request does get made from FEMA Region 6 to begin to come to the state," he told reporter Peter St. Cyr.

Martinez on Wednesday issued a proclamation that freed up $750,000 in state emergency aid for local governments that bore the expenses related to the storm — a step that came after local communities began to tally their damages.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat, wouldn't weigh in on how he thought Martinez handled the storm, but called the gas company's response "unacceptable." His office said he had been in touch with the governor during the situation.

Turning to the gas company

Martinez in an interview said she is still learning from the experience, and hopes everyone involved can get together soon to talk about what could have been done better.

But, she defends her effort. She said once she took over, "We were able to accomplish in 30 hours what had not been accomplished in four days."

Her team put all its energy into the crisis, she said.

"We did everything we thought could happen in the best way we thought we could do it," she said.

When asked what she could have done better, Martinez said she wasn't sure.

"That's where it's going to take everyone affected to be at the table to understand maybe where our shortcomings were. ... I think the shortcomings are going to be something that are important to look at and we'll need to have everyone at the table to say, 'How we could do this better?' "

Martinez said she didn't run into any major obstacles along the way in terms of state laws or policies that need to be changed. But, she said she discovered that firefighters aren't trained to relight pilot lights.

Instead, they were only able to turn meters on or off.

Martinez emphasized that her office doesn't run the gas company and didn't make the decisions about what areas would have service shut off.

Martinez had her own share of criticism of the New Mexico Gas Company and how it handled the situation.

She was particularly distressed that the company did not advise the state of how serious the problem was going to be, or notify the state of its plans to shut off gas to certain communities.

At a news conference last week, she also was critical of how the company responded and dealt with her office.

"That was troublesome, that the numbers we were getting of relights initially was very inconsistent. We could see the numbers of people on the ground was very inconsistent. ... That's when the National Guard went out on Monday and said 'We're in charge, we're taking care of these emergency centers and we're going to keep track of the numbers.' "

The best she could do

In the end, Martinez had the situation controlled in a relatively short time, given the problem's magnitude. Within a week, gas to nearly all customers was restored and no deaths or major injuries were reported. Much of the state seems to have moved on, and some are looking ahead to how she might handle the next crisis.

Former Gov. Dave Cargo said he would give Martinez a 'B' for the job she did handling the crisis.

"I think Susana did some things right; some things there wasn't much she could do about," he said.

Cargo said touring Taos and Española were good moves.

"She did that right. People in the North like a governor that has a hands-on attitude and when you do those things, it makes a deep impression on them."

Overall, Cargo said, Martinez did the best she could, given the circumstances.

"She tried and was successful in a good many ways. I wouldn't be terribly critical of her. She just got into office, she isn't fully staffed in the Governor's Office and people in there don't have much experience," said Cargo, a Republican who was governor from 1967 to 1971.

Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, commended Martinez for how she handled the situation.

Her visit to Taos, and an invitation for Cisneros to join her, "indicated a desire to not just want to deal with the issue but to make sure that everyone concerned was involved, as well.

"She handled the crisis the best she could under the circumstance. ... She acted decisively, immediately and she needs to be commended for that effort. (The handling of) everything else, I disagree greatly with," he said.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog at www.greenchilechatter.com.