TEXAS, USA — AEP Texas crews are restoring the final power outages and are asking customers who do not have power to turn off all major appliances.
According to an AEP Texas press release, the restoration effort achieved 99% completion of Friday.
“Restoration of service to all customers is important and we are placing additional focus on those customers who have been without power for the longest amount of time,” Jeff Stracener, vice president of Distribution Region Operations, said. “We will continue our restoration effort until power is restored to everyone who can take power.
The districts where the largest power outages are concentrated are the Rio Grande and the Corpus Christi districts.
AEP Texas is urging customers without power to turn off large appliances such as water heaters, HVAC systems or anything that uses a large amount of energy.
“In some cases, crews are restoring power to small groups of customers only for the equipment to fail again almost immediately,” Stracener said. “If you are out of power, it’s important to turn off major appliances to allow the equipment to start up properly. This will make the restoration process move along a lot more smoothly and efficiently, and a lot faster for everyone.”
AEP explained that the way a breaker trips when too much electricity is being consumed, too much electricity from a group of homes at the same time during power restoration can cause equipment to trip.
For that reason, customers are asked to turn off major appliances until service is restored and then turn the devices on gradually over a 30 to 45 minute period.
As of 10:15 a.m. Saturday, AEP Texas had restored power to more than 460,000 customers who experienced power outages because of severe winter weather or the load shed event, according to the release.
AEP Texas expects to have service restored to all customers who can take power by the end of the day Saturday.
Customers who still do not have power are asked to call 866-223-8508 to report the outage.
