AUSTIN, Texas — Many of you will go to bed Friday night without power. It will take days for Austin's electricity to be fully restored.
Austin Energy shows restoration for 96% of its customers. Some of the 4% remaining have been out of electricity for nearly a week.
Tristen Mendez lost power at his apartment on Monday. He lost water later in the week.
On Friday, he spent part of the morning shoveling snow into a 40-gallon bucket.
“We’ve gone through power outages with rain storms, but never days without water or anything like that. That’s been the toughest part, getting used to it,” Mendez said.
He said he hopes whatever he can collect will be enough to last until both power and water are restored.
“I’m using it to flush toilets, wash hands,” Mendez said.
Mendez waits for power with nearly 21,000 other people in Austin. The Austin Energy Outage map shows 345 in his area alone.
“I have charcoal so I can light a fire if I need to boil water,” Mendez said.
Austin Energy blames the multi-day restoration process on winter weather issues, including downed trees, broken equipment and ice.
“I don’t anticipate it to come back till next week, so I’m thinking the worst right now,” Mendez said.
Mendez said he needs utilities here before he is back to work next week. If not, he said he can stay with family.
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