There are still about 700 folks in Austin without power from storms that blew through on Thursday of last week. The Statesman article today actually has the balls to put Austin Energy's and the City's excuses for the slow recovery in easy to read bullet form. Maybe there's too many hippies worried about watersheds and smart growth and whatever else, but if a 45 minute thunderstorm can knock Austin off the power grid for five days we have some serious bitching to do at city hall.
Seriously, though - I'd bet if they passed Prop 1 and Prop 2 here in Austin, none of this would have happened, since those two propositions are going to save Austin forever!
/biggest. eye roll. ever.
Just wait until Austin has a big honkin' ice storm.
We used to have power outages during ever so modest storms. Once for twelve frickin' hours after a piddlie little storm. Seriously piddlie.
I have to say, though, there was nothing during all last week's silliness. So they did something right in our neighborhood.
So they *can* get it right, but I don't know what the recipe is.
The only neighborhood affected is the Tarrytown/Pemberton Heights area.
I bet when Austin Energy came by a few years ago during their tree trimming program these people opted out.
I know we used to get blackouts all the time in Barton Hills during storms, but since Austin Energy trimmed the trees in our neighborhood in 2001, we haven't lost power since then.