Xcel: 99 percent of customers without power anticipated to be restored by end of day
AMARILLO, Texas (KVII) — UPDATE: Friday 9:00 a.m.
About 8,100 of the 150,000 Xcel Energy customers in Texas and New Mexico affected by Wednesday's extreme wind event remain without power on Friday morning, which is about a 98 percent restoration rate, according to the company.
More than 500 field personnel, both employees and contractors, are working the remaining 1,062 jobs around the region. Xcel's assessment team has identified 95 poles that need to be replaced in the Texas Panhandle on Friday.
Restoration on all feeder line outages has been completed and crews are now working on tap line, transformer and individual service outages.
Xcel anticipates that 99 percent of the customers who can accept service connections will be restored, with the remainder back in service by the end of the day Saturday.
Customers who sustained damage to their meter boxes and service masts, which are customer-owned facilities, will need to call an electrician for repairs, who will then arrange an inspection by the appropriate code inspectors before Xcel can reconnect service.
UPDATE: Thursday, 4:35 p.m.
Xcel Energy is reporting that there are 16,850 customers in Texas and New Mexico still without power as of 3 p.m. on Thursday. The company has also revised the number of total customers impacted to 136,000, a record-setting number for any outage event on the regional system.
Crews will be working around the clock to make repairs and estimate that the majority of those without power will be restored by 11:30 p.m. Thursday, with up to 98 percent of customers without power being restored by Friday at 11:30 p.m. and all customers are anticipated to have power restored by the end of the day Saturday, due to more complex repairs for some customers.
There are close to 500 personnel working on restoration with 1,600 jobs completed of 2,850 total.
Notifications will be sent to customers based on their estimated restoration time. As crews arrive at outage locations, and determine a new restoration time, a new notification will be sent.
UPDATE: Thursday, 10:15 a.m.
The latest update for Xcel Energy states that 46,000 customers, out of a total of 121,000 who lost service during the storm, have had services restored. This is about 62 percent restoration.
Xcel spokesman Wes Reeves says that the company brought in 25 crews Wednesday night beginning restoration efforts at 7 a.m. Currently, 137 crews are working across the region, totaling 300 personnel working more than 1,500 jobs, out of a total of 2,580 generated by the extreme wind.
The company is still working to gather more information on the extent of the damage in order to provide better estimates of when all power will be restored.
Some customers who sustained property damage will need to have electricians repair their service connections and have the work inspected by local code enforcement, if applicable, before Xcel can restore service.
UPDATE: 3:15 p.m.
According to Xcel Energy, as of 3 p.m., nearly 40,000 customers are without power in Texas and New Mexico, with more than 22,000 without power in the Texas Panhandle, including all of Canadian, Vega and Cactus. Reports of downed poles and wires have come in across the region and crews are performing restoration efforts at more than 850 locations.
There is currently no timeline for restoration efforts.
ORIGINAL:
The high winds blowing across the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico are causing numerous power outages.
According to Xcel Energy spokesman Wes Reeves, service has been interrupted for almost 24,000 area customers. About 18,000 customers in Texas are affected and about another 6,000 in New Mexico.
Xcel crews are working more than 500 outages across the Texas Panhandle, South Plains and Eastern New Mexico regions.
Customers are being urged to watch for downed lines and avoid them. Xcel says downed lines should assumed to be energized.
Outages and downed lines can be reported at 1-800-895-1999 or on Xcel's website.
