Michael Gerber, the head of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, had a news flash important enough to call me Saturday morning.

Gerber wanted Texas Watchdog to know that after having weatherized 47 homes in Texas through December nearly a year after the Weatherization Assistance Program was approved, more than 450 additional homes were done in the month of January alone.

In an unusual, personal weekend update, Gerber said the flurry of productivity in the past month was due to everyone involved in the program finally getting clarification about federal wage requirements.

According to Gerber:

Once we got clarification from the feds after Dec. 24 for what rules apply we were able to ramp up heavily. We did a pretty hefty number, we think, in January and we think we will be doubling or even tripling that number in February.

Crews completed jobs in the Houston, Amarillo and Texarkana areas, with a few jobs completed in the Hill Country area around Austin, Gerber said.

Gerber was at home with his children on Saturday and said he didn't have access to detailed information about the exact location of the homes done, the kind of work done on each home and a breakdown of the cost to do the work.

Gerber's call came just hours after Texas Watchdog posted a promotion for a story on the Weatherization Assistance Program.

The story includes details of the 47 homes weatherized through December and the problems Housing and Community Affairs and the U.S. Departmemt of Energy, which is administering the $5 billion federal weatherization program, have had putting weatherizing crews to work.