Climate Denial Crock of the Week

KUT:

More than 40,000 Austin Energy customers were still without power Sunday morning. Six days after the storm, the city-owned utility had no estimate on when power would be completely restored.

The utility said trees weakened by the storm were impeding efforts. 

“While the weather continues to improve — which is very helpful — the trees are compromised,” Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent said in a news conference with city officials Saturday. “They were stressed by the heavy loading of ice on them, so there is still the potential for tree branches to come down and for more debris to impede our outage restoration.”

The utility said it restored power to more than 34,000 customers overnight.

The city planned to hold a news conference Sunday at 3 p.m. KUT will air the news conference live on 90.5 FM and on this page. 

Pedernales Electric Cooperative said over 4,000 customers are still without power in Hays, Travis, Williamson, Blanco, Comal and Burnet counties; about half of those outages are in Hays.

More than 5,000 Oncor Electric customers are also still without power, affecting folks in Bastrop, Williamson, and Travis counties. About two-thirds of those outages are in Williamson.

Austin Resource Recovery is collecting trash, recycling and compost carts curbside. It said its regular curbside collection schedule will resume Monday, but Austinites can call 311 for curbside pickup of debris.

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration Saturday for Travis, Hays and Williamson counties. State funding and resources will now be allocated to these Central Texas counties. Austin and Travis County issued disaster declarations Friday, while Hays and Williamson county issued them earlier in the week.