When temperatures start to drop, it’s time for neighbors to turn up the heat. Now whether that’s with furnaces or space heaters, they all require electricity. And this time of year, neighbors don’t want to be left in the dark or worse, left in the cold.
Minerva Metoyer lives on the Westside of Corpus Christi. She said she and her neighbors lost power last week for about two hours.
“We weren’t able to cook in the kitchen or eat dinner at the table,” Metoyer said.
Metoyer said her neighborhood normally doesn’t get outages.
“We weren’t prepared for that,” she said.
But it sparked an even deeper conversation; A conversation about preparedness.
“We talked about Coleman lanterns, Coleman stove, let’s be prepared next time,” Metoyer said.
And with colder weather on the horizon, Minerva isn’t the only one who is preparing now.
“This is probably not the coldest weather we’re going to see this week, this is probably just the beginning of winter for South Texas. But we have crews on standby and ready to respond,” Omar Lopez, the Director of Communications for AEP Texas said.
Lopez said the recent area outages were not weather-related. But in cases of severe weather, they amp up their efforts.
“We have our own team of meteorologists here at AEP and we get daily updates from them. We’ll have some of our crews positioned maybe over the Harbor Bridge maybe over the Island, maybe in Port Aransas. Some of our crews live there as well as work there. We really look at where our employees are and where they can be dispatched quickly and safely,” Lopez said.
Metoyer said in the case of an outage in the winter, she’s worried not just for herself, but for her mom and neighbors.
“I can just imagine all the people that live in this neighborhood, if they are on medication and stuff that needs to be refrigerated, I’m concerned about their welfare,” she said.
But that’s not the only reason she’s worried.
“I’m worried about these houses because they’re built back in the 70’s. Insulation isn’t going to be that great," Metoyer explained.
She said many don’t have other options to stay warm.
“Everybody uses electric type heaters, so that’s another factor. People are going to suffer trying to stay warm. We don’t want that to happen to us here,” Metoyer said.
But there are tips that residents can do right now to prepare for possible outages in cold weather. This includes keeping all drapes and doors closed, following instructions on heaters and generators being used, charging your phones ahead of time and and layering up.
Lopez advises those who have at-home medical devices that require electricity to have a backup plan just in case an outage were to occur.
AEP have crews on standby 24/7. Lopez said they cant control the weather, but they can control their response and so can you, and it starts with preparedness.
