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Power outages remained widespread in Central Texas early Friday morning, but as temperatures were poised to start climbing fast, the hundreds of utility crews working to restore electricity to homes in Austin expected to make steady progress throughout the day.
This week’s ice storm brought hundreds of thousands of outages in Texas thanks to falling trees or ice accumulating on power lines, rather than grid issues like in 2021’s massive storm. At one point, more than 400,000 Texas homes and businesses were without power, though that figure had dropped to a little over 240,000 by 6:30 a.m. Friday, according to poweroutage.us.
About half of those outages were customers of Austin’s city-owned utility. Officials in Texas’ tech capital said on Thursday that they couldn’t give a clear timeline when all the local outages can be fixed, despite initially promising full restoration by Friday evening. The utility said Friday morning it had worked through the night to restore power to 31,585 customers.
“If your power is still out, please be patient,” utility officials wrote in a tweet. “We know you are frustrated. We are too. Remaining outages are complex, but there are close to 400 crew members from Austin Energy and neighboring utilities working to get customers back online.”
City officials have reiterated that the delays are not for a lack of trying. On Friday morning, a little more than 22% of Austin Energy customers were still without power.
“Because additional outages are coming online as we restore power, it may look like no progress is being made,” Austin Energy general manager Jackie Sargent said during a press conference Thursday morning. “It feels like two steps forward and three steps back.”
In a subsequent press event on Thursday afternoon, she added that Austin Energy utility crews — including some that have arrived from other areas to help — have had to handle many challenging outages including some more complex than those seen in 2021. Sometimes, Sargent noted, crews couldn’t even access an area due to fallen trees and branches buckling under a “probably historic” weight of ice buildup.
Elton Richards, Austin Energy’s vice president of field operations, noted in the Thursday afternoon press conference that the time it requires for crews to fix outages varies. He said a simple situation such as a tree limb laying on a power line could require just around two hours to repair. But a fully grown tree falling on and breaking poles could more than quadruple the time needed for the crews to restore the connection.
He described the damages brought about by this year’s winter storm as “horrendous.”
“I’ve been doing this over 20-something years and I haven’t seen this much devastation outside of tornadoes up north,” he said.
The outages and debris caused many Central Texas school districts to close for the rest of the week. Even with temperatures climbing, the Austin, Round Rock, Eanes, Lake Travis, Leander and Elgin districts all canceled class on Friday.
The forecast called for drier and warmer conditions in the Austin area with expected highs in the low 60s in some areas Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures could dip below freezing again overnight into Saturday, however lows for the next couple of days were predicted to slowly increase into the 50s by Tuesday.
With those warming temperatures melting ice off of trees, Richards said Austin Energy can finally gain momentum in addressing the challenge — even if it couldn’t stick to its initial Friday at 6 p.m. timeline.
“I think what you’re going to see in the next 24 hours is a massive decline in the customer count,” he said Thursday afternoon.
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