AEP Texas announced this Wednesday that it has made significant progress in restoration of the damages caused by storms in the Laredo area; which left almost 37,000 Texas without power; however, as of 5:00 pm, almost 1500 residents continued without power.
Firstly, continued storms over the past few days created havoc on the Laredo area of Texas. Immediately, the company initiated restoration works; which were projected to end 10:00 tonight, previously. However, due to the continued storm, service may not be restored for everyone until Friday, the company announced.
Secondly, the company released a statement this afternoon, saying. “The situation has been frustrating in that we would make progress restoring customers impacted by one storm only to have another storm follow and undo those efforts.” Said Ron Wells, AEP Texas manager of Distribution Systems.
He also remarked. “We reduced the number of customers without power to 1,700; as compared to the original 37,000 residents who lost power as a result of the first storm.” Nevertheless, he underlined that new thunderstorms “bowed and knocked off additional customers offline.”
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AEP Texas working heavily on repairing outages and damaged assets
Thirdly, as of this morning, the AEP Texas registered winds blowing at over 70-miles-per-hour; in fact, there were reports of other disruptions in traffic; like an 18-wheeler knocked off to its side to the strongest winds.
Moreover, Wells emphasized that crews initially focused on addressing electric hazards caused by high winds. However, new efforts were hampered by lightening, which made conditions unsafe for crews to get out. He also remarked that approximately 50 additional personnel traveled to Laredo; to help restore power, and more have been requested.
In addition, according to the AEP Texas statement, the storms have impacted all of the southern part its service territory; however, Laredo sustained the most damage. Nearly 44 utility poles and 11 transformers endured damage.
Finally, Wells insisted. “We are going to continue working until we restore power to everyone. Assuming there are no additional storms, the challenge then becomes the many outages that affect only one or two customers. We are going to get to everyone, but that increases the amount of time required.”
