AMARILLO, TEXAS -- UPDATE:
Almost 3,000 people were without power today. A failed connector on 11th and Pierce caused that outage and all of downtown Amarillo noticed.
The street lights were out, business were in the dark, and the heaters gone cold. “That extended from Amarillo Blvd. down the railroad tracks towards Channel 7 and then down into the Oliver-Eackle neighborhood over to Amarillo College. So, it was a pretty wide area of the central part of town,” said Wes Reeves, the Xcel Energy spokesman.
A failed connector at the substation caused the outage that even forced a few classes to cancel at Amarillo College. “I was somewhere between home and Amarillo College and I got here and the lights were off and the alarm was going off. Everything was dark,” said math tutor, Lauren Miller, at the Math Outreach Center.
“All of out computers powered down and half of my students were saying yes, we get to go home and the other half were cringing because they forgot to save because they lost an hours worth of their work on their lab,” said Amanda Wheeler, a professor of transfer level math. So they were told to go home. “I think we had two emergency lights and that was it and he (professor) tried to keep teaching but nobody could see the board,” said a student walking to her car.
Reporter: So, then he cancelled class? “Yea,” she continued. The reason for the outages, Xcel said, are the bone-chilling temperatures.
“The weather is a culprit in just about everything that’s happened today. You have a lot of load a lot of people using power and the equipment that we use to distribute that power is being taxed by the cold temperatures,” said Reeves. But even those cold temperatures couldn’t stop these students from studying in the dark.
“I got a test next week, so I have to study anyway, with the lights on or not,” said a student in the Math Outreach Center. “Yes, it will be a little bit cold but we sure can. We’ve got paper and a pencil and calculators, that’s all we need,” said Miller.
Click here to see the Amarillo College inclement weather policy.
The power was restored less than an hour later to most customers. Xcel says they have teams working to monitor the power usage and surges so this doesn’t happen again. If does, they’ll be prepared.
UPDATE: Wes Reeves with Xcel Energy says that all power was restored at 3:08 this afternoon.
UPDATE: Power has now been restore to the station, we are checking to see if all power s back up. We will let you know as soon as we find out.
Previously Posted:
Around 2:30 this afternoon we lost power at the station along with most of downtown Amarillo. Wes Reeves with Xcel Energy says that the sub-station on Pierce lost power.
That station affects 2,920 customers, all the way toward Amarillo College. Stop lights throughout the downtown area are out along with most businesses in the area. We spoke with a person at Amarillo College who said they are out of power also. We will keep you updated with the latest information.
