As of 11:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, AEP Texas had restored electric service to all but approximately 1,580 customers in San Angelo and surrounding communities in the aftermath of severe weather that swept through the area Wednesday evening. That number is a significant reduction from the approximately 21,000 left without power around 9 p.m. Wednesday evening.
Additional service crews will begin arriving in the area this morning to assist in the restoration effort, increasing the number of workers directly involved in the restoration effort from approximately 100 to approximately 260.
“We are now entering the phase where crews begin addressing individual outages rather than large groups of outages,” said Fred Hernandez, AEP Texas Community Affairs manager. “We anticipate having restored power to 95 percent of those impacted by the storm by 11 p.m. this evening, and are confident that many will be restored throughout today. There likely will be a few outages remaining to be addressed on Friday.”
Crews will continue work through the weekend to repair at least 35 transmission or distribution poles damaged or knocked down by high winds on Wednesday evening.
The highest concentration of outages is centered in the north and east sections of San Angelo; however, other surrounding areas also are experiencing outages, particularly Ballinger, Miles, Eola and Veribest.
In the meantime, AEP Texas asks customers seeing any downed power lines to call (866) 223-8508. If at all possible, please give the Meter Number or EasyID number posted on the most recent electric bill. Please remember to stay away from any downed power lines as they may be electrified.
AEP Texas will be posting further updates in the News and Information section of its website at www.aeptexas.com.
Larry Jones
AEP Texas Corporate Communications
(512) 203-4916
lajones@aep.com