For the second year in a row, April 27 brought extreme storms to East Texas, resulting in widespread damage and power outages to more than 30,000 Sam Houston Electric Cooperative members. According to Chief Operations Officer David Babcock, “The damage was much like we see with a hurricane. Many poles and crossarms were broken, and lots of line was on the ground.”
By the end of the day, power had been restored to 25,000 members. Along with Sam Houston EC crews, additional line technicians were brought in from San Antonio and Austin.
“Progress has been good, and the crews are doing an excellent job of dealing with the large number of trees that fell on the lines,” Babcock said. “We are continuing restoration work today (Thursday), and we expect the majority of power to be restored by this evening. However, there may be some cases that go into Friday.”
“We certainly want to restore power as quickly as possible. Our number one priority, however, is the safety of our members and of the line technicians who are out there for long hours in difficult circumstances,” Babcock added.
The current status of power outages can be seen on the Co-op’s website at www.samhouston.net, by clicking on “Outage Viewer.”
