AEP Texas crews made significant progress on Tuesday in efforts to restore electric service to areas of west Texas hit by last weekend’s ice storm.   Crews are now focusing on pockets of outages in very remote areas where rough terrain makes their efforts very treacherous.   As of 9 p.m., approximately 950 customers remained without power as a result of the storm.

Restoration of service to most of these customers is anticipated by Wednesday evening, if not sooner.  However, service restoration to some customers could go beyond that projection.

AEP Texas crews have restored operations to all but one of the ten substations that lost service as a result of the storm, and they working to complete repairs on the 69-kV transmission line between Alpine and Marfa later this evening.   At least 13 transmission structures on that line were damaged by the storm.

Approximately 532 customers in Alpine and its surrounding areas, including the Double Diamond, Sunny Glenn and Calamity Creek subdivisions remained out of service on Tuesday evening.   AEP Texas is projecting that service will be restored to many of these residents by Wednesday evening.

“We are entering the phase where we are addressing either individual outages or small groups of outages,” said Mark Baker AEP Texas regional manager of distribution systems.   “This is the time in a storm restoration effort where we begin to address new problems that have emerged after the first phase of the restoration has been completed.  That means the number of outages will go up and down as we make repairs and discover additional issues to address.  We will continue our efforts and want to thank area residents for their support and patience as we move towards conclusion of the restoration process.”

AEP Texas has announced a planned outage in Ft. Davis and areas around the McDonald Observatory between 2 –to-4 p.m. on Wednesday. The outage is necessary to make additional transmission line repairs.  Residents of Valentine and the Davis Mountain Resorts should only experience two brief outages at 2 and 4 p.m.  The number of outages in the Ft. Davis area had been reduced to around 70 by Tuesday evening.

Approximately 375 customers remained without electric service in the McCamey area on Tuesday evening.  AEP Texas anticipates restoration of service to many of these customers by Wednesday evening.