More than 260,000 people in North Texas remained without power on Wednesday, though Oncor officials said they expected most of the power to be restored by the weekend.
About 266,000 people were without power across the region as of Wednesday morning, including about 182,000 in Dallas County, according to Oncor’s outage map. Additionally, more than 300 traffic lights were still out and another 122 were flashing as of Tuesday evening, according to a city news release.
Oncor officials said crews restored power to more than 340,000 people within 24 hours. At its peak, more than 650,000 people were without power on Tuesday due to winds gusting to nearly 80 mph, golf-ball-sized hail and rain.
Oncor said outstanding power restoration efforts were “substantially completed” by Friday evening, with “highly affected” areas expected to be restored on Saturday.
“We recognize the difficulty and inconvenience customers experience following a severe storm such as this, and we remain focused on restoring power as quickly and safely as possible,” the agency wrote in a news release.
Oncor spokesman Grant Crews previously said the extended outages were due in part to broken wires that required full rebuilds rather than simple repairs. Oncor has asked other power companies in Texas and eight other states for help in fixing the lines as quickly as possible.
As officials worked to make further progress, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said rain and scattered storms would move in from the west late Wednesday morning and continue into the early afternoon. The service said more rain would fall in Central Texas and then take a brief lull before spreading into North Texas by the evening.
“A few strong to severe storms accompanied by large hail and very strong wind gusts cannot be ruled out,” the weather service said, adding that significant rainfall and areas of flooding were expected.
The weather service said the potential for widespread storms was set to return to North and Central Texas Thursday afternoon and evening, again bringing high winds, large hail and the risk of flooding.
The series of storms came days after tornadoes ripped through North Texas, killing seven people and injuring more than 100 around Valley View, a town about 60 miles northwest of Dallas.
Here’s the latest KXAS-TV (NBC5) weather forecast:
Wednesday: Partly cloudy to warm with a 40% chance of storms. Low: 69. High: 85. Wind: Southeast 10-15 mph.
Thursday: Partly cloudy to warm with a 40% chance of storms. Low: 70. High: 85. Wind: Southeast 10-15 mph.
Friday: Partly cloudy to warm with a 40% chance of storms. Low: 72. High: 85. Wind: Southeast 10-15 mph.
Saturday: Partly cloudy to warm with a 30% chance of storms. Low: 72. High: 87. Wind: Southeast 10-15 mph.
