After restoring power to 40K in San Antonio, CPS Energy heads to Austin
After restoring power to more than 40,000 San Antonians this week, CPS Energy hit the road to offer help to our neighbors to the northeast on Friday, February 3, as tens of thousands of Austin Energy customers remain without power. Travis County, along with the city of Austin, plan to ask for a disaster declaration.
“Now, it’s time to travel North on I-35 and help our neighbor,” the tweet said. “[Austin Energy] and Austinites, we’re on the way.”
CPS Energy provided a final update in the San Antonio winter storm saga on Thursday night, February 2, stating that, after working around the clock for more than a day, all weather-related outages were restored at 8:25 p.m. On Friday at 11 a.m., the CPS outage map reports nine active outages affecting 18 people.
The number of Austin Energy customers that lost power peaked at over 150,000 after a massive winter storm moved into Texas this week, bringing a heavy wave of ice that downed power lines and left roads treacherous for days. The utility initially, and hesitantly, said power would be restored by Friday evening, but officials said on Thursday, February 3, they were now “unable to provide a specific system-wide restoration estimate.”
Austin Energy also put out a call for mutual aid from other agencies across the state, and CPS Energy said that crews are on their way now that the Alamo City is back online. The utility’s outage map said that 121,790 customers were without power at 11 a.m. on Friday.
Travis County and city officials announced plans to pursue a disaster declaration at a press conference on Friday morning, and Austin Energy said that it’s taking so long to restore power because trees and their limbs have been falling on power lines, even those that have already been fixed this week, as the ice has thawed.
Austin residents without power that have medical needs requiring equipment can call the Energy’s Medically Vulnerable Registry at call 512-494-9400 or visit coautilities.com/go/mvr.
