Reprint from the Progress Times - July 25, 2008
©Progress Times 2008 - All Rights Reserved

 

Thousands left without power in Hurricane Dolly aftermath

 

By Jim Brunson

In the Upper Valley area, the most serious effects of hurricane Dolly were extensive power outages.

Most critical services in Mission remained operational. However, the southside waste water plant was running on emergency generator power at mid-morning, Thursday fol lowing the storm, according to Mission Fire Chief Ricardo Saldana.

The chief also reported that the city had five sewer lift sta tions without power. However, the city’s public works department implemented its contingency plan for such an event. Vacuum trucks were dispatched and were being used to lift the waste and dump it at the sewer plant. This enabled the city to keep the sewer lift stations operational.

Power outages and power lines down were widespread throughout the greater Mission area and throughout the Valley in the wake of Dolly’s winds.

AEP spokesperson, Lauro Solis, reported that over 201,000 AEP customers–resi dences and businesses–were without power due to Hurri cane Dolly as of Thursday morning. That’s 70 percent of AEP’s 280,000 customers Valleywide. In Mission, AEP reported 21,745 customers were without power as of 10 a.m. Thursday. Power outages for other Valley cities included Brownsville/Port Isabel - 30,530, Edinburg – 16,754, Harlingen – 36,846, McAllen – 20,740, Pharr – 33,084, San Benito – 8,377, and Weslaco – 32,301.

AEP crews began working a first daylight Thursday sending out damage assess ment teams across the Valley to determine the materials and resources needed to rebuild the electric system. This is one of the first steps the utility must take in the restoration process. Crews were also working to clear out electrical hazards like downed power lines. This takes priority, according to AEP spokesmen.

The next priority it getting critical customers back on line, said Solis. This includes hos pitals, nursing homes, water pumping stations and sewer stations.

Mission Regional Medical Center and Mission Nursing Home escaped losing power and had no reports of flooding or other interruptions of serv ices.

“We have all of our employees working to restore power,” said Solis. In addition we have nearly 1500 utility employees coming from East Texas, West Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico to help with the cleanup. We have a mutual agreement with these people to help each other out in case of a storm.”

Solis said storm damage to the electrical system is wide spread throughout the Valley, adding that Port Isabel and San Benito were the hardest hit. “That’s where we have the majority of power line dam ages. It was a major storm that hit us.”

“We started at 5:30 this

morning. Crews went to work as soon as there was daylight and they will work until dark. We expect it will take a few days to get everyone back in service,” Solis said.

As of 2 p.m., Thursday more than half of the homes and businesses in the Mission area had their power restored. The new number of customers without electricity stood at 10,812 for the Mission area.

Solis said some of the larg est numbers of outages in the Mission area were in Shary land where 2,000 customers were out, the Palmhurst area had 1700 customers out, and the area to the west of Mission around Palmview had 1300 customers without power. Each of these area outages seemed to be caused by major distribution circuits knocked out by the storm. He added that tree trimming crews were out trying to clear up the lines that affected the outage at the Mission sewer plant.

McAllen Advisory Issued

In McAllen, the situation seemed to be worse. Extensive outages were reported throughout McAllen and much of that city remained in the dark Thursday afternoon. McAllen City Hall was with out power, as was the city’s wastewater treatment plant. McAllen’s Emergency Opera tions Center (EOC) issued the following advisory Thursday.

“We are advising all citi zens of McAllen to assist us in conserving water. Currently AEP is not supplying power to the Waste Water Treatment Plant. For this reason, we ask that people limit the amount of water used solely for emergen cies; this includes flushing your toilets and showering until further notified. We need your cooperation so that we do not have sewer backup into your homes. For additional information please contact the McAllen EOC at 681-1234 or visit our website at www.mcallen.net.”

Caution Issued

AEP spokesman Larry Jones issued this caution to AEP customers: “Customers without power are asked to unplug computers, TVs and to turn off their air conditioning so when power is restored there isn’t a massive spike in demand which might result in a new outage. Once power is restored, we strongly urge customers to practice conser vation. After you receive power, turn those appliances on in a staggered manner. Don’t turn them all on at once,” said Jones.

Customers calling in an outage are strongly urged to use the automated system. “It’s the most efficient way to report an outage,” Jones said. “As you can imagine, our customer solution centers are backlogged with phone calls.”