Published: September 15, 2008 08:11 am      

Electricity returning for some

By Raymond Billy

rbilly@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Homes and businesses across Jacksonville are slowly but surely regaining electricity after losing it in the wake of Hurri-cane Ike, but other cities are less certain about their circumstances.

More than 12,000 of Oncor Electric Delivery company’s Jackson-ville-area custom-ers — a group which includes Alto, New Summerfield and Rusk residents — were without power as of 8:45 p.m. Saturday.

Charles Hill, east region customer operations manager for Oncor, said 25 percent of the company’s customers were receiving power as of Sunday afternoon. But most of those customers were in Jacksonville as other Cherokee County cities were still largely without power Sunday.

Local nursing homes were given special consideration as Oncor’s crews began the work of repairing damaged power lines. Angelina House and Legend Oaks in Jacksonville both lost power for hours during the storm. Legend Oaks’ electricity was restored at midnight Saturday, and Angelina House regained power Sunday morning.

Jacksonville City Manager Mo Raissi said although progress is being made, residents should continue to brace for days without power. He said people should also be extra cautious when traveling because of the hazardous road conditions created by Ike.

“There are trees down all over the city and our crews are working as fast as they can to move them,” Raissi said. “Some of the trees have fallen on top of power lines and we can’t move them because they are live wires, so we have to wait for assistance from Oncor, so it will be a while before we can move all the debris.”

While power is being restored to some Jacksonville locations and most of the businesses that lost electricity Saturday, Alto, Rusk and New Summerfield were still mostly in the dark Sunday.

New Summerfield Mayor Dan Stallings said he doesn’t know when power will be restored in the city, but is satisfied that Oncor officials are paying attention to the situation there.

“We have 10 or 12 Oncor trucks here right now working on lines,” Stallings said. “But, there’s a lot of work to be done around this city, so it could take them a while to get to everything.”

Alto Mayor Annie Walker said that situation could prevail for the foreseeable future.

“The power could be out for one or two weeks in most of the city,” Walker said from her powerless home in Alto.

Walker said City Hall was completely without power, as the building does not have a generator. She said the city was waiving its penalties for utility bills collected after the Sept. 15 deadline because administrators, lacking the use of computers, would be unable to record those payments in their records or look up payments for residents who lacked copies of their bills. She said residents who have hard-copy bills are welcome to submit their payments, preferably using checks.

Walker said City Hall would be open from 8 a.m. to noon Monday to assist people in anyway possible. She said a special meeting of the Alto City Council would take place at noon Monday to brief council members on efforts to restore critical services in the city.

One issue to be discussed will be Alto’s water supply, which is in dire straits after its water towers lost electricity. The city could run out of water as early as Sunday evening.

Rusk is without water in most areas of the city after four of its five wells lost electricity. Those wells don’t have backup generators. Well No. 5, which services the west side of town, was connected to a generator Friday and is still functioning. Rusk has issued a boil-water notice as a result of the circumstace. Rusk Rural Water Supply issued a similar notice Saturday after three of its plants lost electricity.

Jacksonville officials are only asking that residents conserve water after its plant lost electricity. Raissi said the city has a decent supply of water, but if the plant is without power for a protracted period of time, the situation could become more serious.