February 21, 2021 - In the last 24 hours, crews have restored power to approximately 4,000 members across the service area. As mentioned before, with so many trees and limbs on power lines pulling distribution and service lines down, this type of work simply just takes time. With this, it is very difficult to give estimates of restoration per area. On Wednesday we estimated that this work could take up to 3 weeks. We have had good weather the last two days and more in the forecast, and hope to greatly exceed this timeline. DETEC now has over 300 men on the ground working to restore power as quickly as possible.
As of Sunday at 10 AM, DETEC is currently reporting 10,910 outages remaining.
- Nacogdoches Co: 4,553
- Newton Co: 1
- Panola Co: 193
- Sabine Co: 302
- San Augustine Co: 612
- Shelby Co: 5,249
We continue to hear concern from members of not seeing trucks in their area yet. Please know that crews are working all areas. In order to restore power to your home, crews must first restore power to the transmission lines that feed our substations. After the transmission lines are repaired, we focus on any substation damage. DETEC owns and operates 35 substations. At this time, all transmission and substations are restored. Next we repair the distribution lines. These lines currently have much damage as trees and limbs have fallen from the weight of the ice. While we maintain a 20 foot right-of-way to the best of our ability, our 80-100 foot tall Pine Trees will hit the lines when they fall. It is simply the nature of our beautiful area. Currently we have hundreds of reports of trees and limbs on the distribution lines. The DETEC service area includes over 7,000 miles of distribution lines. After a distribution line is repaired, we can then work on the service line, transformer and fuse to your home. Currently we have thousands of reports of these service lines on the ground. This process to restore power to your home is happening and if you are not seeing a crew in your area, they are still working on the distribution line to get power to your home. We are not making excuses, but no amount of prep work to the lines by your local utility could have been done to prevent damage from this statewide historical weather event. Ice damage and the load issues from the state’s power grid are unrelated issues at this point.
In office, we worked hard yesterday to provide an alternative to reporting your outages. Members may now report their outage by logging into your account on our website or Mobile App. If you do not have an established login, you will need to create an account at www.deepeast.com. You will need to know details pertaining to the account holder. You may also continue to call 1-800-392-5986 to report your outage. You will need to know the telephone number and meter number associated with your account.
