Oncor expects to eliminate remaining North Texas outages on Saturday

About 38,000 Oncor customers, including over 5,000 in Dallas-Fort Worth, remained without power Saturday afternoon, according to the electric utility.

That total included about 2,300 in Dallas County and 2,900 in Tarrant County, Oncor said. The utility said it expected to end the remaining outages in North Texas by day’s end.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden on Saturday approved a disaster declaration for 77 of Texas’ 254 counties. The measure allows use of federal funds to help counties covering most of the state’s population, including North Texans.

The federal money will include grants for temporary home repairs, loans for uninsured property losses and other programs for residents and businesses, the White House said.

Also, in an emergency meeting Friday evening in Austin, the Public Utility Commission of Texas launched an investigation into factors that contributed to this week’s statewide power outages.

“We must act swiftly to discover not only how this crisis came together, but also take meaningful steps to protect electricity customers,” said DeAnn Walker, who chairs the commission.

During the meeting, the PUC waived deadlines for the Provider of Last Resort program, which lets retail electric providers accept the customers of providers that are exiting the market.

The commission extended the registration deadline for providers willing to volunteer to take on displaced customers.

It also delayed until Wednesday the transfer of customers between providers, in order to give volunteer providers more time to register and prepare for an influx of new customers.

“This week’s weather and associated grid crisis were a nightmare for millions of Texas,” said Thomas Gleeson, the PUC’s executive director. “While the financial implications may drive some retail electric providers from the marketplace, we will work to ensure their customers can easily transition to a new provider.”

Gleeson urged customers who are transitioning to new providers to make sure they find a plan that suits their budget.

Dangerous road conditions and damage to equipment have slowed restoration efforts this week, Oncor said. Some transformers were damaged as crews restored large amounts of energy, the utility explained in a series of tweets Friday night.

“This damage is somewhat comparable to blowing a fuse when you plug too many devices into one outlet in your home,” it said.

Elsewhere in Texas, thousands of customers in and around Killeen, Round Rock and Temple also remained without electricity Saturday, Oncor said. An ice storm complicated restoration efforts there, but Oncor said it expected power to be back on by Sunday.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the entity that oversees the state’s power grid, said Friday that its operations had returned to normal and that it was no longer asking people to conserve electricity.

Boil notices remain

At a news conference Saturday, Texas officials gave an update on statewide water issues and the status of delivering water and food to affected communities.

Statewide, about 1,445 water systems were reporting problems related to frozen and burst pipes, lack of power and high demand, said Toby Baker, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Baker said some progress had been made over the last day, with the number of Texans affected by water-related problems edging down from 14.9 million to 14.3 million. The number of residents with no water at all had been more than cut in half, from 352,000 to 156,000.

Sixty-four boil water notices put in place across the state over the last week had been lifted, Baker said.

“My hope is … that we’ve hit sort of the worst and we’ve stabilized, and now it’s just sort of getting out of the hole that we’re in,” he said.

Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said 9.9 million bottles of water had been ordered from federal partners. Of that amount, the state had already received 5.5 million and distributed 2.1 million, Kidd said.

The state had ordered 250,000 ready-to-eat meals and expected to order 5 million more, Kidd said. None of the meals had arrived in Texas as of Saturday afternoon, owing to road closures and other weather-related obstacles, he said.

The National Guard had more than 200 military vehicles working to take food and water to Texans in need, said Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris of the Texas Military Department. More than a dozen planes were making multiple flights a day out of Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio to deliver food and water, she said.

Kidd said 331 warming centers would remain open as long as people were without power or water.

A boil water notice for North Fort Worth had been lifted, but one remained in place for West Fort Worth on Saturday, according to the city’s water department. The department said that its labs would begin sampling water in West Fort Worth on Saturday and that TCEQ would lift the notice once test samples were cleared.

University Park, including the Southern Methodist University campus, was still under a boil notice Saturday afternoon. Mayor Tommy Stewart said the notice would remain in effect until at least Monday morning.

Damage survey

The winter storm could be the costliest weather event in Texas history, according to the Insurance Council of Texas, possibly surpassing even the $19 billion in insurance claims after Hurricane Harvey.

The state has launched a self-reporting damage survey to gather information on the effects of the winter storm. The information will be shared with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but filling out the form does not guarantee assistance.

Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Division of Emergency Management encouraged Texans to complete the voluntary survey, which is available at TDEM.texas.gov/warm.

“The information gleaned from this survey will help our state identify the full impact of this winter weather and help emergency management better serve Texans,” Abbott said in a written statement.

The big thaw

The temperature at DFW International Airport hit 54 degrees Saturday afternoon, the highest in 12 days, the National Weather Service said. Highs are expected to reach the mid- to upper 60s by midweek, the weather service said.

After 139 straight hours of temperatures at or below freezing, the mercury at DFW Airport had finally surpassed the freezing mark Friday afternoon.