By 3 a.m. Thursday morning, AEP Texas crews and contractors had restored electric service to all remaining customers who lost power as a result of the thunderstorms that swept through the Abilene area with 80-mph winds on Monday evening.

The crews will continue to repair or replace the two-to-three remaining distribution poles of the approximately 50 damaged or broken as a result of the storm. They repaired or replaced the last of approximately 30 damaged or downed transmission structures by 11 p.m. Wednesday.

“I thank our crews and contractors who have worked safely and as quickly as possible throughout the restoration process,” said Greg Blair, AEP Texas External Affairs manager. “But just as importantly, I want to thank area residents for their patience and support. The Abilene area does not experience storms of this intensity very often. When a storm this big occurs, we are all in the situation together.”

AEP Texas brought in 140 American Electric Power employees and contractors from surrounding areas to assist the 60 local AEP Texas service techs working to restore power in the Abilene area following the storm. The number of outages reached 24,500 around 9:15 Monday evening. However, AEP crews restored power to over 90 percent of that number by early Tuesday morning, and the number of remaining outages declined steadily since then.