The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

The cold front that began its trek through Southeast Texas Monday night is leaving more than rain and cold in its wake for Entergy Texas customers. Heavy rain as well as ice accumulation on trees and power lines left more than 14,000 customers without power at 3:00 p.m.

Hardest hit areas include cities and communities in and around Silsbee, Cleveland, Conroe, New Caney and Woodville. While ice was not a problem in the more southeastern areas served by Entergy Texas, it was an issue in areas west of the Trinity River. In those areas, power may not be completely restored until late Wednesday, March 5. Power will be restored in most other areas late tonight.

“Mother Nature gave us more than forecasted but we were prepared. All of our workers are mobilized and working to assess damage and restore power,” said Vernon Pierce, vice president, customer service.

“We are grateful that the temperatures did not stay below freezing for an extended period with the amount of rainfall we had,” Pierce said. “That prevented it from turning into ice which kept the damage from being any worse. “However, 14,000 outages is more than bad enough, especially if you’re one of those doing without electricity in these cold temperatures,” Pierce said. “We appreciate the patience of our customers as our crews work as safety and quickly as possible to restore power.”

Pierce added that storm outages often include downed power lines. He reminded customers to stay away from any downed lines and to treat every power line as though it is energized. Customers impacted by the storm are also encouraged to access entergytexas.com and click on the View Outages link. Real time outage information is available at that location.