Storms knock out power across Metroplex

Tens of thousands of North Texans were left in the dark Wednesday after thunderstorms knocked down power lines and lightning strikes took out transformers. At its peak, the storms left 24,000 people without power across the Metroplex, but that number had been reduced to about 8,000 by early Thursday.

One of those without power was Tom Plunkett, an east Plano resident who said he believes the block he lives on loses power more often than it should. After losing power at 9 p.m. Wednesday night, Plunkett's electricity was not turned back on until about 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

"This has been going for over a year with Oncor," Plunkett said Thursday morning. "We lost power last year for about 12 hours, then lost power several times this spring when we had nice weather. Last week we lost power for 11 hours, and right now we are without power again. Our neighbors across the street never lost power, but the houses on our side of the street and the ones behind us did."

Plunkett said losing electricity is costing him and his wife more than their comfort: It is costing them money as well.

"This will be the second time in a week that we are going to have spoiled food in the refrigerator and freezer," he said. "We can't afford to keep buying new food if we are going to lose power for 12-14 hours every time it rains. We also have our 18-month-old grandson with us and we can't feed him properly without the refrigerator running."

Plunkett said he has been frustrated with Oncor due to a lack of communication regarding the power outages. He said when the power is out, he is never able to get an accurate estimate of how long it will be before the electricity is turned back on.

"At first they said it would be back on at 1 a.m., then it was 5 a.m., then it was noon and then 1 p.m.," Plunkett said. "They tell me they are working on it and that they will look into why we are losing power so often, but they said the same thing last week and nothing happened. Is this such an insurmountable problem that it can't be fixed?"

Michael Baldwin, an area manager at Oncor, said as many as 8,000 Collin County customers lost power Wednesday night, with about 1,100 still lacking power as of noon Thursday.

"The severe storm that we experienced last night created high winds and large amounts of lightning, which can cause power interruptions," Baldwin said. "Oncor crews have been working safely and diligently thorough the night to restore service to our customers."

Baldwin said he often hears people refer to an "old grid" that needs repairing and replacing as reasons why one may lose power more often than another. He said this is not the case, as the lines used by Oncor don't "age." He said the way the system is designed can lead to frustrating situations such as the one Plunkett experienced.

"Oncor's distribution system is designed with protective devices in place to isolate faults in order to maintain service to as much of the system as possible. In the event of a problem, only the customers behind the protective device are impacted" he said.

To report power outages, call 1-888-313-4747. A map showing which areas are without power is available online at www.oncor.com/community/outages.

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