AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- As utility crews across the city worked Friday to restore power to more than 114,000 customers still without electricity, Austin's mayor apologized for "letting the people down."
Mayor Kirk Watson joined city leaders including Austin Energy general manager Jackie Sargent at City Hall, providing a third press conference in just over 24 hours.
"As mayor, I accept responsibility on behalf of the City, and I apologize that we've let the people down in Austin," Watson said. "Public frustration is absolutely warranted. Over and over again, we see the same failure. So something will change. You'll see that communication will be clear, frank and will happen in real time using any and all available techniques going forward."
Turning to efforts to restore power, Sargent said the utility is "cautiously optimistic" that restoration efforts have turned a corner. The number of reported customers without power had been steadily falling since reaching a peak late Thursday, though crews are continuing to find smaller, more isolated outages as they repair more upstream issues.
"As reflected on our outage map, the number of customers affected has begun to come down because our restoration numbers are going up while the number of repeated outages is going down," Sargent said. "Fewer trees are falling, which means repeated outages have slowed down."
Despite the progress, utility officials are no longer providing a simple estimate of when they expect all power to be restored, saying Thursday that the damage to the system is so extensive and each outage is a unique situation.
Travis County Judge Andy Brown said he and Watson are considering issuing disaster declarations to help with restoration and relief efforts.
More than 100 crews are working to restore power to affected customers, including crews from neighboring cities like New Braunfels and Houston.