By BJ Austin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-949881.mp3
Dallas, TX –
ONCOR is doing rolling electrical outages across North Texas.
The company's Ashley Burton says the temporary, planned outages are at the request of ERCOT the electrical grid for 75% of the state. She says demand for electricity during this winter storm is outpacing supply.
Burton: We are shedding load in a very structured manner by selecting the feeders that will be affected that would NOT affect hospitals, police stations, a lot of our critical care first responders. These are short duration outages. They're about 15 minutes.
Burton says customers should go ahead and call the outage number: 888 313 4747. She says there is a very high volume of calls. The rolling outages began about six am.
This morning, Oncor showed more than 42 thousand Dallas customers without power, more than one thousand in Fort Worth. Oncor's Burton says the ice-related outages were restored overnight.
No word on how long the planned outages will last.