Mayor Kirk Watson said he shared the frustrations of Austin residents left without power for days and said the city will improve how it communicates during storms.
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At the city’s first press conference about the emergency — which came more than a day after tens of thousands of Austin Energy customers lost power — Watson said he shares the frustration of many residents who have criticized delayed warnings.
. “Each individual outage has unique challenges and full restoration will take longer than initially anticipated. At this time, we are unable to provide a restoration time.” Complicating matters for people without electricity, Austin Energy’s online outage reporting tool also wasn’t working Wednesday evening. The company asked people to call in issues but also warned customers that there were long wait times to get through.
While the local power outages now are different from the blackouts in February 2021, emergency communication was a problem in both crises. During Winter Storm Uri — when millions of people across the state lost access to power and water amid record-low temperatures — the Texas Division of Emergency Management failed to send out cellphone notifications via the national Emergency Alert System.
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