Thanks for everything, TXU

Thanks to TXU's blazing speed in responding to our power outage, we were without power for only 15 hours. Here's my timeline.

• 5:45am I wake up and see that there is no power in the house. I assume it's a temporary issue and go back to bed
  
• 6:55am I wake up again and see that there is still no power. I call TXU's automated emergency outage number and report problem and get confirmation number.
• 9:00am I walked down to the convenience store to get a paper and they were closed due to the power outage. This was my first indication that it was a larger problem.
  
• 9:15am I call to check on outage. I explain that I reported an issue 2 hours earlier. He asked if I had heard an explosion at the same time as I lost power and asked if I had checked my breakers. I explained again that I had a confirmation number from when I callled it in earlier. He said that I didn't and he will put in a trouble ticket and report the issue. He said he has no way to look up that number and that the ETA to resolution was 2:00pm.
  
• 9:45am I called back to see if the problem had actually been reported this time. It had.
• 2:05pm I called back to get an updated ETA. He said that the ETA was still 2pm. I asked for a better ETA. I explained that that the problem was with my whole block. He asked if I had checked my breakers. I explained that there aren't breakers for my entire block, but that I had tested my home's breakers.
  
• 4:00pm I called back to get an updated ETA and was told that they couldn't give me an ETA for resolution, but that she 'guaranteed' it would be resolved today.
• 4:30pm The temperature in the house has been rising steadily all day and it was 85 degrees in the house. We went to a friends house to wait.
  
• We saw on the news that the problem had been resolved at 5:00pm.

Nobody I talked to at TXU Energy was interested in sharing any information. There job was simple (to tell me something I wanted to hear and get me off the phone). They should have put an announcement on their emergency outage number that explained that the following areas were impacted by a power outage caused by a failed transformer.

Storms knocked out Round Rock power

6/18/2006 6:33 PM

By: News 8 Austin Staff

Nearly a thousand people in south and southeast Round Rock spent most of the day without power.A transformer was hit by lightning around 2 a.m., TXU said.The outages also affected the Dove Creek, Green Slopes and Cushing areas.Power was restored just before 5 p.m. Sunday.

News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | TOP STORIES | Storms knocked out Round Rock power

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