Winter storm leaves many without power
Area students were pleased to get a few days off school but were disappointed by not getting a whole lot of snowfall. However, with the colder temperatures with the freezing rain, many of the residents were left without electricity. A report from findenergy.com a website that provides power outage maps for large networks like CBS NEWS, Bloomburg, and Houston Chronicle reported that on January 9 Cass County, Texas had approximately 1,240 out of 21,242 tracked meters (5.84%) were without power in Cass County, Texas.
On Wednesday in anticipation of the storm, area School Districts closed schools. Cold rain began around noon and Thursday and by Thursday evening freezing rain began to blanket the area. On Friday morning with the weather warming up slightly some businesses stayed open and others closed, while traffic around town was minimal with many choosing to stay home. Many in the area lost power.
Areas further north of the County and into Texarkana and other parts of Arkansas saw worse weather. According to SWEPCO, “No more than a ½ inch of ice increases the weight of a span of powerlines between poles by up to 500lbs which is roughly equal to the weight of a grizzly bear on the lines.”
“The storm blanketed snow across the Texas Panhandle and Northwest Arkansas Thursday and covered much of the ArkLaTex in an overnight wintry mix. For residents of the Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas areas, the storm delivered an icy blow. The icy impact wreaked havoc on the power distribution systems as trees gave way to icy weights causing limbs to snap lines.
“While there were minimal impacts to some parts of SWEPCO’s service territory, the Texarkana region sustained most of the damage after 9 p.m. Thursday.”
SWEPCO published four updates as of Saturday, January 11 at 4:44 p.m. According to their last update, SWEPCO Projected 95% Power Restoration by 10 PM that evening, “Crews Committed to Full Recovery.”
“In the aftermath of Winter Storm Cora, SWEPCO crews continue to rebuild, repair and restore power. SWEPCO expects 95 percent of all customers who can receive power will be restored by 10 p.m. tonight. Crews will continue to work until power is restored to all customers.
“The rise in temperatures was welcomed as crews continued their efforts since pre-dawn to clear trees and, wherever possible, repower customers. Nearly 1,000 personnel, including resources from SWEPCO’s sister utilities at Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) and AEP Texas along with contracted tree crews from the area and as far away as North Carolina and South Carolina answered the call to offer extra assistance.
“We sincerely thank our customers, first responders and elected officials for their patience and understanding as we work diligently to restore power.
“At peak, the winter storm caused 36,637 outages across SWEPCO’s three-state service territory, which have since been reduced to roughly 8,000. The icy impacts from Cora dealt a blow to the region with downed trees and power lines, primarily in Texarkana and surrounding areas. The latest work reports show more than 875 trees requiring forestry personnel and repair for more than 175 spans of wire.”
Bowie Cass reported on Jan. 10 that “great progress has been made throughout the day in our restoration efforts! We started our day with over 13,000 meters without power out, and we are currently at 6,886 meters out. So far, our crews have only come across 3 broken poles, which is good! That will save us quite a bit of time in making repairs. (Now, that number could change, but for now we are hopeful) There have been even more broken crossarms and other pieces of equipment found that will need to be replaced and/or repaired. Throughout the day, we’ve posted pictures of some to our social media of the damage we’ve sustained that has been sent in by our linemen and co-op members. Crews are also encountering more trees and broken limbs that have fallen from outside the rightof-way and onto our lines.
“All available BCEC personnel are a part of our restoration efforts. We have added two additional cooperatives to our crews. We have a total of 7 of our sister cooperatives either here or headed this way to give us a hand: Trinity Valley Electric, Rusk County Electric, Deep East Texas Electric, Cherokee County Electric, Houston County Electric, Jasper-Newton Electric, & Upshur Rural Electric. Cooperation Among Cooperatives will always be one of our favorite Cooperative Principles. Additionally, we have 2 Artisan contract crews and 12 Right of Way crews assisting. We appreciate every single one of these men for stepping up and coming to our aid!”
On the 10th Bowie Cass listed outages: Bowie- 4377 Cass- 1549 Titus- 509 Morris- 406 Red River- 44 The Journal-Sun will continue to monitor the final impact of Winter Storm Cora.