Thousands of San Antonians are still without power following a Friday night storm that at its height cut off power to more than 100,000 customers.
That number dropped to 4,300 customers who were still in the dark as of early Monday morning. CPS Energy crews have been working to resolve the remaining outages, which the city-owned utility reported at 1:45 a.m. totaled 393 outages.
“While significant progress has been made, we know that it does not lessen the frustration for customers who remain without power,” CPS posted on X.
Over a 12-hour period on Sunday, CPS restored power to more than 85,000 customers who had lost power in 710 weather-related outages.
The city-owned utility warned on Saturday that restoring power could take several days due to the extensive storm damage. There were downed power lines, broken poles and damaged trees across the city.
“As our crews move from one outage to the next, they continue to see complex storm damage that requires significant work before power can safely be restored,” CPS posted. “Depending on the damage, repairs may require specialized equipment, multiple crews, or extensive tree and debris removal before restoration work can safely begin.”
With the rain came 24,000 cloud-to-ground strikes in CPS’ service area, causing “lots of lightning damage” to equipment, interim CEO Frank Almaraz said.
CPS focused first on the outages that affected the most customers, while also prioritizing critical facilities like medical centers, water and sewer plants, police and fire stations.
As of Monday morning, CPS’ outage map was dominated by incidents on the West and Southwest sides. Outages spanned diagonally from Atascosa County to past Selma.
Almaraz warned at a Sunday news conference that as the numbers dwindled, restoration would become harder as crews faced numerous issues to fix that would restore power to only handfuls of San Antonians at a time.
CPS Energy is hosting a 10 a.m. news conference to provide an update on its efforts. Its monthly board of trustees meeting is being held this afternoon.
Residents without power have been advised since Saturday to find a cool place to stay. Temperatures inside residences without power can climb to nearly match the outside temperature.
The city of San Antonio says residents can visit places such as libraries and pools to stay cool. The city also has established resilience hubs for those needing additional resources. The hours for the centers vary and can be viewed on this map.
VIA is continuing to offer free rides to cooling centers and resilience hubs.