Hurricane - Force Winds Cut Power to More Than 300,000 Texans
Posted on: Thursday, 3 May 2007, 06:00 CDT
DALLAS, May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncor Electric Delivery crews worked through the night after storms with straight-line winds in excess of 75 miles per hour ripped across North Texas. The winds caused about a dozen transmission towers to fall southeast of Cleburne and also caused entire trees to fall into power lines. The extensive damage could mean that some residents could be without power for up to a week.
By early morning, the number of affected customers had been cut by a third.
Wednesday's storm was the fifth most damaging in the company's history. The worst storm occurred June 1, 2004 when 1.41 million customers lost power following similar straight-line winds that reached hurricane force.
"This is a huge storm by any measure and we knew immediately we would need some help, so we asked utilities from Oklahoma and other parts of Texas if they could send assistance. Those crews should begin work by Thursday afternoon," said Rob Trimble, president and COO of Oncor. "But even with all of the crews, the extensive nature of the damage means that it will take time to get everyone restored."
Trimble noted that in several places entire trees fell into power lines. In those cases, it could take several hours to safely remove the tree before repair crews could begin their work. In addition, about a dozen transmission towers toppled at the junction of Hill, Johnson and Ellis counties. Transmission lines serve as electric highways, so the damaged lines would be the equivalent of a bridge collapse on a major highway.
On Thursday, the company expects to have more than 2,400 repair workers in the field to restore power, including the crews from other utilities. There are more than 600 workers who will be working just to remove trees and branches from power lines.
The majority of the outages are in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. About 100,000 are without power in Tarrant County and the West Metroplex area. Another 200,000 are without power in Dallas County and the East Metroplex area.
Oncor Electric Delivery, a subsidiary of TXU Corp., provides power to more than three million homes and businesses and operates more than 115,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines in Texas. Information about Oncor can be obtained by going directly to http://www.oncor.com/.
Oncor Electric Delivery
CONTACT: Chris Schein of Oncor Electric Delivery, +1-214-534-0087, orMedia On-Call, +1-972-791-6200, for Oncor Electric Delivery
Web site: http://www.oncor.com/
Source: PRNewswire
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