DICKINSON, Texas – More than 12,000 customers in Dickinson, League City and Texas City were without power Monday into Tuesday at the peak of a major outage.
The Texas New Mexico Power Co. said power has been restored to the majority of its customers at this hour.
There are still about 25 customers in Dickinson without power, which should be restored by 2 p.m.
But customers are still frustrated
"We've been without electricity for 14 hours," said Al Jones, who lives in Dickinson.
Power went out around 5:30 p.m. Monday. Repair crews said the outage affected traffic signals and drivers were told to pay attention to the signals and use caution where they were not working.
Power was not restored to about 500 customers in the Colonial Estates in Dickinson until 7 a.m. Tuesday.
One customer said a similar outage happens every year. He said his family loses hundreds of dollars' worth of groceries each time. Â
"This happens every year. We don't know why, especially (with) the hot summer months. We lose groceries, and it's not good for anyone,"Â Daniel Shannon said.
Al Jones showed KPRC2 his fridge as he began to throw out hundreds of dollars’ worth of food.
Jones, who also needs a CPAP machine to keep him breathing at night, said he hadn't slept in 14 1/2 hours.
"I promise you this, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning, I was out riding, and this subdivision was black and that subdivision was black," Jones said. "Why did that happen? why does one little bitty substation power so many? Texas City was out, La Marque was out, and Dickinson was out of that one little bitty substation?"
Another family said they were worried because a member of their family is on oxygen and the battery was running low.Â
TNMP said it monitors its systems to prevent any unexpected problems, especially during the summer months when the load on the system is high.
The company said it cannot promise that another outage won't happen, but they said such incidents are rare.
Crews worked all night to switch over customers to a different substation after the substation on FM 517 and Timber Drive failed.
In the Colonial Estates neighborhood, the company said a piece of equipment tripped at some point during the larger outage.
The company became aware of those outages around 5 a.m. Tuesday after receiving from customer calls.
Power was restored by 7 a.m.
The Texas New Mexico Power Co. is asking anyone who is still without power to call 1-888-866-7456.
