Tens of thousands of North Texans prepare for fourth day without power

As another round of storms soaked an already saturated North Texas, Oncor said crews working to restore power to more than 100,000 customers were slowed.

“I feel like we deserve to know what the next week is going to look like and right now we just have no idea,” said Mina Shamsa Burns.

Shamsa Burns is now 72 hours into an outage that began Tuesday morning and among the growing number of frustrated customers wondering when help will arrive.

In her neighborhood, Eastwood Hills, downed power lines still drape streets.

“We know this is happening everywhere. I know everyone’s frustrated. For me, it’s more of just there’s no communication, and then again, just the danger of having those power lines down,” she said.

Oncor said, since Tuesday, it’s deployed more than 10,000 personnel, working 16-hour shifts, to restore power to more than 500,000 of the people who lost electricity Tuesday.

It said it’s closely monitoring possible storms Thursday night and Friday.

If crews can safely work throughout that time, Oncor said it hopes to substantially complete restoration efforts by Friday.

People in the hardest hit areas, including East Dallas, North Dallas and Mesquite, may not see the lights come back on until Saturday.

Shamsa Burns is among those who’ve taken matters into her own hands, purchasing a generator to get through the next few days as she waits for clarity on the status of outages.

“It’s just a bunch of pieces right now that are up in the air, and it makes it kind of challenging,” she said.