February 26 , 2003 News Media Release

Power Restored Following Winter Storm

Power was restored by 11:30 pm February 24, 2003 to Austin Energy customers affected by an outage in north Austin that occurred when winds and icy conditions caused transmission lines to begin “galloping” or swaying up and down. The waving activity caused the lines to touch each other at various points, shorting out the lines. The outage began about 5:30 pm February 24 leaving about 11,000 customers without power.

Freezing rain formed a layer of ice on the lines that helped sustain the swaying motion. Winds continued throughout much of the evening, prolonging the problem. Austin Energy had to re-route power from different directions to the affected customers.

A smaller outage also occurred about 11:00 pm February 24 in the Burleson Road area affecting about 1,500 customers. Power was restored by midnight. There were no other major outages overnight during this weather event.

Also, a line that fell across IH-35 near Grand Avenue Parkway in Pflugerville during the storm was a telephone or cable line and not a power line. Austin Energy and Texas Utilities (TXU) quickly checked the line once it was down and verified it was not a power line. The downed line blocked traffic on one side of the Interstate.

Austin Energy, the City of Austin’s electric utility, serves 350,000 customers.

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For more information, contact Ed Clark, Public Information.
Phone: (512) 322-6514
Pager: (512) 802-2000