Several Southlake residents spent Father’s Day in the dark as the temperature soared to 100 degrees for the first time this year. Neighborhoods affected included parts of Timarron and Monticello.
The five-hour power outage on June 15 was the fourth this year for portions of the Monticello neighborhood off Continental Boulevard.
All four outages had different causes, ranging from tree contact during a storm, an underground cable failure, a blown transformer and a bad terminator, said Carlos De La Torre, area manager for Oncor Electric Delivery.
Crews investigate each outage to see if there’s a trend developing, but so far they haven’t found one in this case.
"When they see a pattern that starts to develop they start to dig deeper," De La Torre said.
The reason it took so long to fix the latest outage was the transformer that had to be replaced was in someone’s backyard, meaning crews had to manually load the equipment.
"It’s unfortunate that the outage had to happen on Father’s Day," De La Torre said.
Triple-digit heat like Southlake had that day typically leads to more air condition use, but De La Torre said the outage had nothing to do with demand.
"From time to time they just fail," he said.
Bigger homes like those in Southlake require more electricity but De La Torre said the transformers are built to handle the anticipated load when a new neighborhood goes in. When people add on to their house or install a swimming pool, it can create more demand that wasn’t expected.
When an outage occurs, don’t assume someone else will report it.
"Always make sure and call the number on your electric bill," he said.
When there’s a big outage from a storm or other act of God, De La Torre said the crews will typically focus on restoring power to the area with the biggest outage.
"Outages always out number the resources," he said.
If your outage is contained to a few streets while others involves several neighborhoods, "you’re going to be down near the bottom," De La Torre said.
People who rely on electricity to power breathing machines or other life support can call their retail electric provider to be listed as critical customers. Documentation from a doctor is required.