Dolly does damage to Texas grid
AEP lines accounted for most of the 28 lines the Texas grid operator said were out of service recently in the Rio Grande Valley.
Two 345-kilovolt lines belonging to AEP were shut in Cameron County, said spokesman Larry Jones, along with a dozen 138-kv lines and eight 69-kv lines, most serving South Padre Island and Harlingen.
Jones said it was too soon to determine whether the storm damaged transmission tower structures or simply knocked lines out of service. High wind from the remnants of the storm prevented aerial inspection of the lines early July 24.
Across the storm-damaged area, four 345-kv lines were shut after the storm, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
ERCOT said the lack of transmission posed no reliability problems.
However, the agency issued an emergency notice for the Brownsville area, saying 50,000 more customers could lose power if the remaining transmission line serving the area shut.
AEP said the number of customers without power fell to 155,500, down from more than 200,000 earlier in the day, according to a company website.
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Fire in manhole leaves thousands of Hydro-Québec customers without power
MONTREAL - Hydro-Québec says a power outage affecting Montreal is connected to an underground explosion and a fire in a manhole in Rosemont—La Petite–Patrie.
The fire started in underground pipes belonging to Hydro-Québec on Bélanger Street between Boyer and Saint-André streets, according to Montreal firefighters, who arrived on the scene at 12:18 p.m.
The electricity had to be cut so that firefighters could get into the manhole where the equipment was located.
At the peak of the shutdown, nearly 41,000 customers were without power. As of 7:00 p.m., 10,981 clients still had no power.
Hydro-Québec spokesperson Louis-Olivier Batty said the utility is being strategic about how it restores power.
Because of the cold, it anticipates that…
