East Texas Still Without Power After Swath Of Summer Storms

More than 100,000 households and businesses in East Texas are still without power amid a massive heat wave after severe storms hit early Friday morning. Via the Texas Tribune:

An Enhanced Fujita-1 tornado measuring a half-mile wide caused severe damage to homes in Panola County in East Texas on Friday before moving to northwest Louisiana. The tornado had winds up to 110 mph with a 7.78 mile path length, according to estimates from the National Weather Service.

Some additional severe storms swept through East Texas over the weekend with lightning, wind damage and hail.

The tornado and subsequent storms caused major damage to the grid provider’s transmission system, a backbone of the energy delivery network. Transmission lines, which deliver power from power plants, are out of service due to tree damage. Utility poles and distribution wires are also down.

Of the 110,000 Texas households and businesses without power, the majority were customers of grid provider Southwestern Electric Power Company, according to PowerOutage.us. Southwestern Electric Power Company is independent of Texas’ electric grid, known as ERCOT. East Texas – along with the upper Panhandle and El Paso – are on separate power grids because of their remoteness and the history of utility service territories.

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