System Overload Prompts Power Outages in Brownsville, Texas, Area

Dec 28 - The Brownsville Herald

About 25,000 households spent Christmas Eve in the dark after an energy overload in American Electric Power's system prompted a shutdown across the lower Rio Grande Valley, AEP officials said Tuesday.

About 3,000 were still without power on Christmas, with some outages taking three days to fix.

"I felt like they were really jerking us around," said Jerry Davenport, 62, whose house on Oklahoma Road lost power at 11 a.m. Friday and didn't permanently return until 11 p.m. Sunday. "They tell us it was because of the snow but I think they just put too many houses on one line."

Frank Espinosa, spokesman for AEP in Texas, said some customers were without power as early as 3 a.m. Friday because AEP's system overloaded from the increased use of heaters and electrical equipment.

"We had extreme cold temperatures and there was a great demand on our system," Espinosa said. "In your house you have a breaker box and that equipment is built to withstand so much amperage."

If that level is exceeded, "it shuts down for safety reasons so the house doesn't burn down. That was happening in a much greater scale." The Brownsville Public Utilities Board, which recently expanded and upgraded its power substations, reported between 400 and 500 outages -- none of them lasting longer than an hour.

"Our substations could handle the higher load," said PUB spokeswoman Lucila Cano Hernandez, adding that new substations were recently built for Brownsville's expanding north side, and upgrades were given to stations in central Brownsville.

PUB faced rolling blackouts in May 2002 when blowing dust knocked out power in some areas, but the newer equipment addressed the problem.

Espinosa said AEP equipment is also updated regularly, but could not say whether the outages will prompt a massive upgrade.

"We continually assess our equipment and replace it as necessary, but we have no way of foreseeing some circumstances," he said, noting that ice and snow does not often affect the Valley.

"We do build for our terrain. We have more corrosion in the Valley due to the salt air." Some AEP customers are not happy with how the situation was handled.

Winterhaven Resort resident Albert Dorsett Jr., 47, said his power went out at 11 a.m. Friday and came back on 45 hours later. He called the customer service telephone number and "only spoke to a person twice," he said. "The other times I was talking to a computer that didn't have very many options. I put (the selection for) downed power line because I wanted to know what it would say. It said to be sure to stay clear of live wires and call again later. My God that was stupid."

He continued calling, and eventually talked to an AEP representative in Louisiana.

"The first time I spoke to a person I reported it and they said they would be coming over that same day," Dorsett said. "I told them I'd be here, but no one came by."

Espinosa said customers in highly populated areas were helped first.

"We try to restore the power where there are the greatest amount of people and try to bring people online," he said. "That's what we do in emergency situations."

That method alleviated some of the problem, he said.

"During the peak of Christmas Eve, about 11 (p.m.), we had 25,000 (customers) out," Espinosa said. "By the morning that was down to 3,000."

Davenport was one of those 3,000.

"We made several calls and I feel like they could give you a little more detail than what they were doing," Davenport said. "They just said to leave the refrigerator shut."

Davenport was told if he had complaints he should submit them in the form of a letter, but was informed that AEP is not responsible for weather-related problems.

"We are protected from acts of god, such as cold snaps, tornados, and things like that," Espinosa said, adding that reimbursements were not likely for customers who stayed in hotels during the outage. "If someone feels that our service caused damage, to their computer for example, there is a process they can go through."

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