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Thousands Hit by Blackout in East Austin

Update:

Austin Energy has posted a message on twitter that: "Power fully restored at 7:50 pm to all customers affected by Airport Blvd/Springdale/E. 12th St area outage."

Earlier:

With the temperature at over 104 degrees residents of East Austin lost power Tuesday evening. Reports began coming in a little before 6:00 PM of a power outage centered in the Rosewood neighborhood between East Martin Luther King Boulevard and East Seventh Street

A call to Austin Energy was not immediately returned but the utility' Storm Tracker website shows that 3,159 people were without power as of 6:34 PM. Within a half hour the blackout spread to other sections of East Austin potentially impacting thousands more. Austin Energy is still reporting that the site of the initial blackout should be repaired by 9:00 PM, but is "assessing damage" in other parts of the city.

While Electric Reliability Council of Austin has repeatedly warned that increased power usage due to the extreme heat may cause rolling blackouts at some time this summer, the ERCOT website is currently reporting grid conditions to be normal.

 

Mose Buchele focuses on energy and environmental reporting at KUT. Got a tip? Email him at mbuchele@kut.org. Follow him on Twitter @mosebuchele.