TYLER, Texas — Oncor says restoration of power in East Texas could take multiple days following Tuesday's storms.
Tom Trimble, Oncor's customer service east region manager, said after the storms made their way through East Texas roughly 67,000 Oncor customers were impacted.
"We were sitting around about 67,000 customers. We're down to about 56,000 customers right now. We'll continue to make progress on that over over the evening, and then through the night and into tomorrow. But like I said, this is a multi day restoration effort," Trimble said.
Oncor says they're focused on getting power back to critical infrastructure first, which includes hospitals, water and sewer infrastructure.
"The thing that is focused on, like I said before, is making sure that the critical infrastructure for our towns...that people have water, sewer and power is back on at hospitals. Then we're gonna look at the biggest outages and then go down to the smaller ones from there," Trimble said.
Tyler has the most customers affected in the area which Oncor says is due to it's population.
This week severe weather has caused damage across the state of Texas. Oncor crews are working in multiple areas to bring back power, which could be a factor in the delayed restoration.
"We've actually called in people from other territories outside of the state, calling them in for help. Because Dallas did get hit very hard with storms and so we're gonna need people up there to help, we're gonna need people down here to help as well," Trimble said.
Trimble is reminding customers that if a powerline is down to call 911 and report it and do not touch any downed powerline. To report a power outage, use the Oncor mobile app, website or call 888-313-4747.