Not everyone has their power back
In the rural Hill Country, there are lots and lots of power poles and many fell over, due to ice accumulation.
Bob Loth is the CEO at the Central Texas Electric Cooperative, headquartered in Fredricksburg. "With all the weight from that ice, when you lose a pole typically all that weight then shifts to the next pole and the next pole and the next pole. We've got areas with as many as 40 poles down." And there was a lot of ice. "Some of the people measured an inch and a quarter ice on grass. There was about four inches of ice that was measured on a transmission line in Harper. I'm talking four inches thick, not four inches around. It was incredible."
He says a lot of cross arms broke and they had a lot of wire on the ground. About a thousand miles of line was out. It's a big area, with few people. "We only have five meters per mile of line. My crews that are down here just finished a job that was 46 poles long. 46 poles that they changed out. And those 46 poles serve seven customers"
As of Thursday, about 45 hundred customers were without power. The hope is Friday that will be closer to three thousand.
Employees and contractors are putting in 16 hour days. He says the hope is there will be a thousand or fewer customers in the dark by Sunday. "We will not rest until sever meter is turned on. We are going to keep at this. These are the most dedicated people you've ever been around. You can tell them to go home and it's difficult to get them to."
