AUSTIN, Texas — At a press conference at Austin City Hall Thursday morning, Austin Energy said the company has done a better job of tree upkeep and trimming progress ahead of a potential freeze.
During last year’s ice storm, 10.4 million trees were knocked down, taking out dozens of powerlines and causing a substantial portion of the city to lose power for days.
Since then, Austin Energy has been trying to catch up on maintaining powerlines around trees.
“We have about 85 crews that are out there, and right now with this weather coming up, we’re focusing on trimming around poles, substations," Austin Energy General Manager Bob Kahn said. "So we’re in pretty good shape on that, making good progress."
The energy company came under fire in September after a report from the City auditor revealed that it had been behind on proper upkeep of trees around powerlines. The audit said the company had been trimming less frequently than industry standards recommended for years, which contributed to overgrowth and increased workloads.
That’s one reason why the company recently added additional tree trimming crews per day. Ahead of a potential freeze, Austin Energy said it's been weatherizing and inspecting equipment, as well as adding more people to its emergency management team to respond to issues.
“Our personnel are trained for winter weather emergencies, critical supplies are in stock and our crews are ready to roll to respond to any local outages,” Kahn said.
To stay informed with how Austin Energy is being affected by the weather, you can sign up for outage text alerts by texting “R-E-G” to 287846. You can also check Austin Energy's outage map, which is updated every 10 minutes.