MIDLAND COUNTY, TX (KWES) - Four MISD schools, as well as thousands of south Midland residents were without power Wednesday morning. Oncor says a fire at a power pole was the culprit and it is not uncommon during this type of weather.
"Weather like this can be just as critical to the electric company as the major wind and lightening and storms," said Sue Mercer, Oncor Spokesperson.
Oncor received their first call about the outages around 4:45 a.m.
A fire broke out at the 100 block Terrell on a power pole and transformer.
"The extreme amount of dust that we have builds up on the poles, as that gets wet, it allows the flow to track over," said Mercer.
Oncor says the misty rain we experienced overnight in combination with the dust on the poles has a potential to produce fires and cause outages.
MISD released a statement acknowledging the outages and said, "their campus administrators and staff are trained to adjust to changing circumstances." They said power was restored to all campuses by 12:00 p.m.
Oncor tries to fix these types of issues as quickly as possible, but when a pole is affected, it typically takes more time to work on the problem That's why they encourage customers to call in.
"If they report the outage, then they will be notified when the power has been restored, if they so choose, either by text, voice mail or email," said Mercer.
