Status as of Friday, 11 AM
February 19, 2021 - Today we welcomed 200 crews to aid in restoration. Unlike tornado or hurricane damage that generally impacts a portion of our system more than another, this storm produced damage and outages across our full system. While we love our East Texas Pine Trees, they are not a good partner to heavy ice! These widespread outages are making it very difficult to give specific restoration estimates by area at this point. Keep in mind that today is the first day that we’ve had temperatures above freezing. Navigating highways with large, heavy equipment and getting extra crews here has been a challenge on icy roads. We expect to see some good progress today.
At this time, we are prioritizing water systems as they are critical infrastructure. This does not mean we are not working on all other areas as well.
If you are without power, please call 1-800-392-5986. For prompt service, please know your meter number. Due to heavy call volume we are experiencing some delays in recording your outage. Please continue to call our lines. Without your meter number, you will experience longer times or dropped calls as we cannot connect everyone with a live agent with this many outage calls still coming in.
There are several news stories circulating about high bills to come and price gouging within the electric industry. Please know that only a small portion of the DETEC system (less than 1%) is within the much talked about ERCOT system. In addition, you are served by a non-profit cooperative whose price structure is not as told in these stories. PLEASE DO NOT WORRY over these fear filled stories. The current focus is restoring power and getting folks back to a comfortable state in their homes, this coverage is counterproductive to that goal.
