Oncor crews continued working through the night Friday to restore power to thousands of homes in the region. Many were still without power, though, after wintry conditions in Smith County and surrounding areas caused downed lines, trees and other issues.
As of 11:35 p.m. Friday, Oncor reported more than 35,000 of its customers were still affected by outages.
Smith County remains the one of the most heavily affected counties in Oncor's coverage area. In a statement on Friday afternoon, Oncor said crews are hard at work in the Tyler area.
"Tyler/Palestine areas: Your community has experienced heavy damage from ice and trees," Oncor stated. "Resources have been working in many areas (often not visible from the road) to remove vegetation and debris. Additional resources are in your vicinity assisting with restoration efforts as it may require multiple crews to remove vegetation, repair poles and replace wires."
It still did not provide a time estimate for restoration.
For the Athens and Jacksonville areas, Oncor anticipated Friday that power would be restored to the majority of customers between now and overnight Friday with the remaining customers restored Saturday.
Oncor said its personnel and contractors are "actively engaged."
"We also secured additional mutual assistance support and now have more than 2,000 workers from other Texas utilities and neighboring states making repairs," Oncor said. "There are many reports of downed wires. As the weather improves and you venture outside, please be cautious. Safety for our employees and the public is our number one priority. If you see a downed power line, stay away, keep pets and others away and call 911 immediately."
Outages in local counties as of 11:13 p.m. Friday include:
Smith County: 3,558 outages, restoration time unknown
Henderson County: 774 outages, restoration time unknown
Cherokee County: 6 outages, restoration time unknown
Anderson County: 251 outages, restoration time unknown
Van Zandt: 172 outages, restoration time unknown
For a full map of outages across Oncor's coverage area, visit www.stormcenter.oncor.com.
To report an outage text OUT to 66267, use the MyOncor app, or select "Report an Outage" located above the map. You may also call 888-313-4747 to report your outage.
