More than 5,600 Austin Energy customers were without power Thursday night, the second consecutive day that thousands lost power amid record-high temperatures.
By 10 p.m., the outages had been reduced to about 2,300, according to Austin Energy’s outage map. The power is estimated to be restored by 10:50 p.m.
The outages were primarily affecting customers in an area of Southwest Austin near Southwest Parkway and Barton Creek Boulevard.
The cause of the outage is under investigation as of 10 p.m., Austin Energy spokesperson Matt Mitchell told the American-Statesman. The electric utility said the outages — like the Wednesday outages, which affected more than 7,000 customers — were “local” and not related to the statewide electric grid. The grid is operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
Mitchell had confirmed Wednesday that the outages that day were caused by high energy usage causing substation equipment to trip offline.
Temperatures were as high as 107 degrees in Austin on Thursday, breaking a record high for the date at Austin Camp Mabry, according to the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio. Temperatures reached 109 degrees on Wednesday, the weather service said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Thousands without power in Austin as temperatures exceed 100
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