AUSTIN, Texas — Some Austin residents are without power Tuesday afternoon, and Austin Energy says high wind gusts are to blame.
The KVUE area is under a Weather Impact Alert Day for Tuesday due to extreme fire danger brought on by powerful wind gusts reaching 40 to 50 mph, prolonged drought conditions, extremely low humidity and warm temperatures.
Some of those wind gusts have knocked out power in areas of the city, according to an Austin Energy spokesperson. Two notable outages – one near Clayton Lane and U.S. 290 and another near Hollybluff Street and Bluff Bend Drive – were wind-related and Austin Energy said, “There’s bound to be more to come.”
Austin Energy said its crews are responding to wind-related outages across its service territory, and it has extra crews staged for faster response. The utility company said wind gusts as high as what we’re seeing Tuesday can cause trees to blow over and power poles to snap, leading to outages.
Additionally, Austin Energy’s own bucket truck operations could be impacted due to wind-related safety issues. The company is asking the community to be patient as crews work to assess the damage and restore power.
As always, you can check Austin Energy’s active outages on its online outage map. As of just before 2 p.m. Tuesday, there were 61 active outages impacting nearly 7,500 customers.