A damaging outbreak of severe weather across the nation’s heartland, toppled trees, snapped lines and disrupted power to SWEPCO customers across the ArkLaTex region.
Recently, the National Weather Service’s storm survey team confirmed the severe storms included six tornadoes that barreled through the Four States Region. Four tornadoes were confirmed within SWEPCO’s service territory with peak wind gusts estimated between 85 - 100 mph.
With the storm impacts and recent significant rainfall, repairs are required not only in residential areas but also in hard-to-reach, sometimes treacherous terrain.
Crew response
As part of the crew response, specialized track equipment has been brought in to access damaged areas
As part of the crew response, specialized track equipment has been brought in to access damaged areas and teams have also leveraged resources on the ground, in the air and on boats so SWEPCO could make their way to where the work needed to be done.
Powering the response: Work continues. Approximately 1,200 utility workers, including lineworkers and tree crews, have made their way from five states to offer help. The team expects another big push towards restoring customers will be accomplished Tuesday. As that work progresses, SWEPCO will share any potential restoration time updates.
At peak, approximately 61,000 SWEPCO customers were without power. As of Tuesday, at 9:00 a.m., power has been restored to roughly 50,115 customers. All hospitals and critical care facilities are online.
Extended power outages
Because of excessive damage to electrical equipment, including transmission and distribution systems, SWEPCO customers should prepare for extended power outages and in some cases additional outages could occur as SWEPCO repairs damage to their system.
Based on the number of outages and crews available, SWEPCO develops a Global Estimated Time of Restoration or ETR, which is an estimate of how long it will take to restore 95% of all customers affected. The more damage there is to the system, the further out in time the global ETR will be.
Latest restoration times include the following:
- Marshall, Carthage, and Mt Pleasant, Texas – 10 p.m. Tuesday, April 30
- Hornbeck, La. – 10 p.m. Tuesday, April 30
- Shreveport and Bossier, La. – 10 p.m. Wednesday, May 1