Austin mayor apologizes as city struggles to restore power

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Widespread energy outages within the Texas capital stretched into a 3rd day Friday for 1000’s of residents following a winter storm that was spiraling right into a administration disaster as metropolis leaders remained unable to say when all of the lights would come again on.

Impatience amongst frazzled, freezing and fed-up households in Austin escalated at the same time as milder climate returned. On Friday, the newly elected mayor stood earlier than cameras and apologized after per week of gradual repairs, failed know-how and missing communication with the general public.

“The town let its residents down. The scenario is unacceptable to the neighborhood, and it’s unacceptable to me,” mentioned Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat who took workplace in January. “And I’m sorry.”

Whereas New England started shivering and closed colleges beneath an Arctic blast anticipated to convey the coldest climate in a technology, temperatures lastly began to average Friday and convey some aid to Austin, the place at any given time about 30% of consumers within the nation’s Eleventh-largest metropolis have been with out electrical energy because the ice storm swept into Texas late Monday.

Metropolis officers mentioned Friday that important progress was lastly being made as frozen tools and roads thawed. About 117,000 clients nonetheless lacked energy, in accordance with Austin Vitality, town’s utility. That’s down from a peak of round 170,000 individuals, practically a 3rd of all clients.

However frustration was not melting away for residents who nonetheless had no assurances or sense of when their energy would return.

“I simply truthfully suppose they weren’t ready for any of this,” mentioned Edward Kim, 43, whose house had been with out energy or warmth since Wednesday. He was utilizing a generator to maintain his home “on life help,” whereas his spouse took her 7-year-old daughter to her workplace to get a bathe.

Steve Spencer, 63, had additionally been with out energy since Wednesday — regardless of town’s utility calling him twice to inform him his energy was on, he mentioned. “I don’t know what’s happening down there,” he mentioned.

Will Rison didn’t lose energy, however his dad and mom, who’re of their 70s, have been with out electrical energy since Wednesday. They’ve been coming to his house to cost their telephones and take showers.

“You’ll be able to solely wrap your self in so many blankets and wait it out,” Rison mentioned.

For a lot of, the outages stirred disagreeable reminiscences of the 2021 blackouts in Texas, when tons of of individuals died after the state’s energy grid was pushed to the brink of whole failure due to a scarcity of technology. That was not the case this week, because the grid maintained enough reserves.

Vitality specialists mentioned Austin’s dense tree cover made the outages attributable to fallen timber and iced-over energy traces extra widespread. Most energy traces are overhead, and Austin officers mentioned burying current traces could be costly and tougher to restore.

Austin Vitality at one level mentioned energy could be totally restored by Friday night however then backtracked, saying the harm was worse than initially calculated. The utility’s on-line system for reporting outages additionally briefly crashed this week, and metropolis leaders didn’t maintain a information convention to publicly reply questions till Thursday.

“This was a reminder you possibly can have loads of energy crops however nonetheless have an unreliable grid,” mentioned Michael Webber, professor of vitality assets on the College of Texas at Austin. “The wires and poles are the weak level of the system.”

There have been no stories of deaths from this week’s energy outages, although the storm and freeze have been blamed for at the least 12 visitors fatalities on slick roads in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Two deadly crashes occurred in Fort Value as streets refroze in a single day. Lows on Friday night time may attain freezing and probably glaze over the streets once more.

In New England, temperatures started plunging Friday morning, and forecasters mentioned wind chills — the mixed impact of wind and chilly air on uncovered pores and skin — in some greater elevations may punch under minus 50 (minus 45 Celsius). Winds in a few of these spots have already topped 80 mph (130 kph).

Wind gusts started chopping energy Friday to some houses in New England, and plenty of communities opened warming shelters, together with in Maine and Connecticut.

Faculties closed Friday in Boston and in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest metropolis. “This is just too chilly for college students who stroll house,” learn an announcement on the Manchester district’s web site.

Some ski areas within the two states scaled again operations, eliminating night time snowboarding or lowering carry operations.

In Maine, the Nationwide Toboggan Championship pushed Saturday’s races again by a day, simply two weeks after relocating the competitors as a result of a pond wasn’t but frozen as a consequence of heat climate.

The irony of delaying competitors due to frigid circumstances wasn’t misplaced on Holly Anderson, one of many organizers.

“We’ve executed subzero competitions earlier than. However the wind completely modifications the atmosphere. It simply makes it untenable to be exterior,” Anderson mentioned.

A few of the most excessive climate was anticipated atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the Northeast’s highest peak and residential to a climate observatory, the place winds gusted to just about 100 mph (160 kph) and wind chills may attain minus 100 (minus 73 Celsius).

The system is predicted to maneuver out of the area Sunday.

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Sharp reported from Falmouth, Maine. Contributing to this report have been Related Press writers Kathy McCormack in Harmony, N.H., Ken Miller in Oklahoma Metropolis, Jim Vertuno and Acacia Coronado in Austin, and David Collins in Hartford, Conn. For extra AP climate protection: https://apnews.com/hub/climate