Thousands without power in Corpus Christi; Controlled outages possible

Thousands of people in the Corpus Christi area remained without power Monday as record low temperatures set in.

On Monday morning, temperatures across South Texas were as low as 10 degrees, with wind chills of 1 and 0, the National Weather Service said.

As of 7:30 a.m. Monday, the AEP Texas’ Outage Map showed these outages:

more than 3,200 people on the island
more than 2,000 in the Flour Bluff area
more than 3,000 in the Southside
more than 11,000 in the Bay Area
more than 3,000 in the Northside
More than 2,000 in Northwest/Calallen area
More than 2,000 in Portland
More than 4,000 in Aransas Pass
More than 6,000 in Port Aransas

HOW LONG WILL OUTAGES LAST?

There is no listed restoration time.

AEP is also conducting controlled rotating outages through Tuesday, according to a news release.

At 1:25 a.m. Monday, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas directed companies to begin the outages to avoid a large-scale outage and prevent long-term damage to the electric system, the release states.

“AEP Texas began rotating the areas affected so that consumers are impacted for a limited amount of time — typically 30 minutes to an hour,” the release reads. “The amount of time required to restore service could be delayed in some cases due to system and weather conditions.”

The controlled outages are expected to continue for the next 24 hours.

AEP asks customers who lose power to turn off heating and large appliances to allow a smother service restoration. Once power is back on, customers should switch devices back on gradually over 30 to 40 minutes, the release states.

“Taking this step will help prevent a sudden surge in demand after power is restored, which could cause a second outage,” the release reads.

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