Austin Energy Says Recovery Almost Complete, Hundreds Still in Darkness

Austin, Texas – Hundreds of people remain in the dark as Austin Energy continues to work to restore power.

“Fortunately, the restoration work is almost complete,” said Matt Mitchell, a spokesman for Austin Energy.

Austin Energy is said to be nearly done when it comes to restoring full power. Currently, less than 1% of the city remains without electricity.

“I know this is a wonderful relief for our customers who have been without power for so long, and of course for the tireless efforts of our crews, who are working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to get to this point,” Mitchell said.

Austin Energy says they believe nearly all customers will have electricity by Sunday, Feb. 12, two weeks after the ice storm first struck.

Mitchell says it hasn’t been easy because the weather this week has added to the challenge. On Friday morning, 7,500 consumers lost electricity due to the blockage of the circuit for two hours. The reason is called windy weather.

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Mitchell says this has been taken care of and they are now focused on the last few outages.

“You come across these latest blackouts and they are incredibly unique and sometimes very challenging. Restoring power safely requires several steps. quality and standards that we need to see before we can safely restore these homes. This is what we have left now,” he said.

Meanwhile, the City of Austin and the Interagency Resource Centers hosted a winter storm relief event at the Austin Convention Center.

“We wanted to create a space where if you are still facing hardship and heartache from a lack of power, you know what we can do to help you,” said Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, District 9 council member .

Qadri attended the event to answer questions and listen to citizens. Representatives from Austin Energy, insurance companies and other resource agencies also attended to answer questions.

“We just need to work better as a council, as a city, to make sure this doesn’t happen again, because whether it’s 100,000 people without electricity or ten people without electricity, we need to make sure that we do everything we can to ease any pain. and the suffering these people experience from them,” Qadri said.

Another winter storm relief event will take place on Saturday, February 11 at the Austin Convention Center.