Like thousands of other Austin residents, Darrin Murphy began his sixth day without power in his home on Monday, wrapping his head around the city’s latest demoralizing update: Another delay in getting the lights back on completely. May take weeks.
“We’re planning for the worst,” he said.
Making any plans has been difficult and downright infuriating for the nearly 20,000 customers who still had no power Monday in the Texas capital nearly a week after a deadly blizzard and under the weight of fallen and frozen tree limbs. Power lines came down. Schools eventually reopened, but noisy generators roared before dawn, and outdoor extension cords running 100 feet (30 m) or more became lifelines between neighborhoods that had electricity and those that did not .
Frustration boiling over the slow pace of restoring power, and officials repeatedly saying they could not offer a timetable for repairs, put the future of Austin’s top city executive in jeopardy on Monday, even That the number of outages continued to decline.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, called a meeting for this week that would put City Manager Spencer Cronk’s job at risk. The move reflects growing discontent in America’s 11th largest city, where late Sunday, Austin Energy issued a statement in the face of mounting criticism that full power restoration might not happen until February 12 – nearly two days after the outage began. week later.
Watson tweeted, “To all of our Austin citizens who are furious about the ongoing power outage, you are correct.” “There must be accountability.”
Cronk, who oversees city staff, responded by telling reporters that he was focused on storm recovery and restoring power. Watson didn’t say explicitly whether he thinks Cronk should be fired, but said Thursday’s meeting will “evaluate the employment” of the city manager.
For the vast majority of Austin residents, the lights were on Monday or never went out before. At the peak of the outage, about 170,000 homes and businesses—about a third of utility customers in Austin—had no power, and in many cases, no heat. As of Monday, the outage had dropped to about 4% of all customers.
But despite the power failure, familiar scenes came to the fore in the mohallas.
There is a pile of spoiled food in the dustbins. Power outlets in coffee shops and restaurants were snatched by people charging battery packs and devices. And on text message groups and social media apps, the locations of repair crews were treated as an immediate development.
Katie Manganella, 37, was so fed up that when Austin Energy came to her neighborhood on Sunday with a charging station for residents — but still no repair trucks — she walked in front of the station holding a poster that read , “This pregnant woman is over it!”
“It’s very pathetic,” said Manganella, a physician who is seven months pregnant and was unable to work last week because of the outage. “How come there’s no plan for this?”
Austin Energy has described the remaining outage as the most complex and time-consuming. The storm dropped temperatures near or below freezing and coated trees with snow throughout Austin, causing branches to weigh down and eventually break and crash onto power lines. Iced-over equipment and crews walking on slick roads also slowed recovery efforts, according to city officials.
In one instance police were called, said Craig Brooks, director of operations for Austin Energy. He did not provide details about the encounters, describing them as, “Some verbal. Some people protecting their property.
The utility warned Monday that a new front of strong winds and possible storm surges starting Tuesday could further hamper restoration efforts.
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