AUSTIN, Texas — As tens of thousands of Central Texas remained in the dark Thursday morning, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson seemed to sum up what many residents were thinking in a City press conference.
"It's an understatement to say it's been just a challenging three days for our area," Watson said, adding that officials have been "making steady progress" in the winter storm recovery.
As of just before 11 a.m. Thursday, more than 153,000 Austin Energy customers are without power. The utility provider has said it expects all power to be restored by Friday evening. By then, some will have been in the dark for multiple days.
Watson – who is in his fourth week in office – said he understands residents' frustration because he feels the same.
"Like so many of our residents, I've been frustrated. I've been frustrated by the lack of power in our homes, including mine. And I've been frustrated and disappointed in the communication that I feel like should've been better with the people of the city," Watson said. "A press conference like this, to answer questions, should've happened before now."
Watson said the City will hold another press conference likely Thursday afternoon or evening to keep people updated. He also said the City intends "to ensure that lack of communication does not happen" and "the protocols of communication and disaster will be reassessed and recreated."
Watch the press conference in full below:
Jackie Sargent, general manager of Austin Energy, echoed Watson's sentiments. She stated that Austin Energy has 85 crews in service, with 32 additional crews from other utilities that joined Wednesday. More crews from Houston are expected Thursday afternoon.
"Our crews restored power to more than 113,000 customers in the last day. Yet we are seeing additional ice and tree limbs knock out power again, sometimes on the same circuit our crews have just restored. Our crews are frustrated, too," Sargent said.
Sargent called the current winter weather event "one of the most widespread ice storms to hit Austin and certainly one of the worst" and noted that the outages residents are experiencing are localized outages caused by ice accumulation on tree limbs, power lines and utility poles. The outages are not related to the state power grid, like what Texans saw in February 2021.
Sargent said crews are working tirelessly to restore power, but due to the nature of the outages, the outage map may make it look like they're not making much progress.
"Because additional outages are coming online as we restore power, it may look like no progress is being made. But we are restoring power," Sargent said. "It feels like two steps forward and three steps back."
Sargent also reminded residents that they should assume all downed power lines are live and therefore should not be touched. People should also avoid touching trees that are touching lines.
When asked why Austin's power lines aren't buried, Sargent explained that retrofitting a system is very expensive – billions of dollars – in part because of the limestone in the ground, among other issues. She also said that buried lines pose their own challenges, including being vulnerable to flooding and it being harder to tell where a buried line might have a problem.
Sargent said when working to restore power, Austin Energy first prioritizes critical loads. The provider then looks at which areas are impacting the most people.
When asked about whether these outages are the result of a vegetation management issue, Sargent said that Austin Energy did reach out to crews ahead of time, but "it wasn't expected that the ice amount would be as significant" and more ice was created than anticipated.
"We can always be better. But in this circumstance ... the amount of weight that has accumulated on the vegetation is probably historic, extreme. And that has caused significant challenges for us, along with ice on equipment," Sargent said.
When asked what can be done to ramp up vegetation management moving forward, Sargent explained that policies sometimes stand in the way of cutting too much.
"We have policies that are given to us that direct our tree, our vegetation management programs. And because we want to preserve the beautiful urban canopy that we have here, we often are only allowed to do v-cuts for certain portions of lines, trees that are under lines. And that weakens the trees. And so, in cases like this, it actually adds to the potential problem," Sargent said. "We'll be working with our policymakers to help us with that."
When asked how much it is going to cost to repair all the current damages, Sargent replied, "I don't have those numbers at this time." She also said that customers should not expect another power rate increase "at this time."
Toward the end of the City's press conference, Mayor Watson said he has received a lot of questions about what the City is going to do about trash and debris collection. Director Ken Snipes with Austin Resource Recovery stated that the department is resuming its collection services Thursday after suspending services starting Tuesday.
Snipes asked that residents with large storm debris cut those items up and get them to the curb. If residents are unable to do that themselves, the City is currently working on an agreement with a nonprofit to help assist with that debris.
Richard Mendoza, director of Austin's Public Works Department, added that crews have been out on the roads since Tuesday to work on road conditions but are now switching to clearing debris in roadways. Public Works is working with Austin Resource Recovery to clear debris and is prioritizing major arterial roadways first, then neighborhood roads.
The department asks residents to call Austin 311 for assistance moving debris rather than trying to do it themselves, given the unsafe conditions.