Denton County

Sanger residents avoided power outages over the extremely hot weekend

Sanger's weekend outages are to help with the strain on the system, Argyle's Friday outage was to allow for equipment upgrades

NBC Universal, Inc.

Residents in Sanger were prepared for power outages because of growth in the area, but they conserved enough power to avoid outages on one of the hottest weekends of the year.

Power outages were planned in two North Texas cities, one because of the strain on the grid during the intense heatwave, the other because of enormous growth.

POWER OUTAGES AVOIDED IN SANGER

The City of Sanger posted a message for residents on its website warning of planned power outages Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

"While this heat is hard on us, it also puts strain on our system. To help reduce some of that strain, the City of Sanger Electric customers may experience rolling power outages," the message on the website reads.

The outages were planned for 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, and continue from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The planned outages were expected to last approximately 30 minutes with one hour between each outage.

NBC 5 asked Sanger about the planned blackouts, the city's public information officer said they're "not interested in discussing it."

Some residents said outages began Thursday.

Misty Moore said she and her children lost before around 6 p.m. Throughout the 30-minute outage, Moore said her thermostat jumped 12 degrees.

“I would say that there are a lot of people upset, mostly that there aren’t a lot of communities doing this and the fact that there wasn’t notice given, or not enough notice given," said Moore.

The city encouraged residents to continue to conserve energy to help reduce the time span for outages and apparently, residents complied and power outages didn't happen.

"Your efforts to conserve power reduced the strain on our equipment so that we did not have to implement any rolling power outages Friday, Saturday, or today," the city posted on its Facebook page Sunday night.

Residents were prepared for the possibility of outages.

At 1886 Bar & Grill, they had experienced the rolling blackout on Thursday and were ready just incase more happened.

“Friday when we were actually kind of prepared for it, no we didn't have any issues thankfully, we were really busy and I was kind of waiting for it It just never happened," said the manager, Dillion Mauboules.

They made light of the situation through a Facebook post and said they would have specials if the power went out.

"Saturday we were kind of preparing for it to go off between 3 and and 8 put some specials on Facebook that when the power does go out , we would have chips and queso for sale and then some beers for sales," said Mauboules.

Other than the heat, as to the specifics for the need for a possible planned outage, residents are still waiting for more information, while they come up with their own conclusions.

"I think that’s because it was such a small town and this year  the town has really blown up that it’s not used to this much energy being used," said Mauboules.

As we head into the hottest weekend of the year, people in two Denton County communities are preparing to lose power. To be clear -- the issues are not directly connected but both are tied to the strain of a growing population and sweltering temperatures.

ONCOR PLANNED OUTAGE FOR ARGYLE FRIDAY NIGHT

Oncor put residents in Argyle on notice that there's a planned power outage Friday night.

Oncor says it's increasing the capacity of equipment that serves the Town of Argyle and the outage is needed to "safely complete the upgrades."

Power will be disrupted starting at 11 p.m. Friday and power will remain out until upgrades are completed, which isn't expected to take more than five hours.

"Oncor has agreed to complete this project in the middle of the night to provide the least disruption to households and take advantage of lower temperatures," according to a statement on Argyle's website.

Oncor says the same homeowners who experienced an outage on Thursday from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. will be affected again.

"Because of the extreme growth in our area, an autotransformer installed a year ago has already reached its maximum capacity. This upgrade will facilitate the installation of two larger autotransformers to meet the current needs while allowing room for expansion," Oncor said.

“This will hopefully help with any blackouts we might have in the future," said Argyle's Director of Public Works Robert White.

Oncor says while the outages aren't ideal if the equipment isn't replaced and fails, the power would be out for 18 hours for replacement and repairs.

Exit mobile version