The City of Horseshoe Bay will shutter its city offices for a day in antic ipation of planned outages by Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC).
PEC’s scheduled outages Tuesday and Wednesday, April 7 and 8, involve work to upgrade electrical equipment. The work comes on the heels of two planned outages carried out March 24 and 25.
“Impacted residents should have received notices via email, mail, text, and robocalls. Not all residences are affected,” according to a statement from the city of Horseshoe Bay. “Outages are expected to last between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.”
Officials added City Center, 9101 FM 2147, and old City Hall, 1 Community Drive, will be closed to the public today, Tuesday, April 7 as a result.
PEC officials say the inconvenience is necessary to continue “delivering safe, reliable, and low-cost energy for its members and communities” and “to better serve members in Horseshoe Bay.”
“The work will improve system reliability and is necessary to meet the area’s growing energy needs,” said PEC spokeswoman Kendra Acosta in a statement. “By completing this project, PEC will double the voltage capacity from 7.2 kV to 14.4 kV to help manage increased load on the system.”
To assist with those who rely on constant power, officials offered resources.
“Some residents may have vital medications that need to be kept cold, or medical equipment that requires power,” Horseshoe Bay officials wrote in a community-wide alert. “PEC advises residents to leave refrigerators and freezers closed as much as possible during the outage to preserve food and chilled medications.
“Please consider using a cooler to keep items cold longer. Refrigerators left unopened should keep food cold for about four hours without power, and freezers for about 48 hours.”
Residents with “medical needs who require power” can receive assistance from and refuge at the Church at Horseshoe Bay, 600 Hi Ridge Rd. Call at 830-5988390. The church will be open from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. on the outage dates.
However, the City of Horseshoe Bay added: “All essential city services will be running, including water, police, and fire."
The Horseshoe Bay City Center is scheduled to re-open for regular business hours April 8 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“If there is inclement weather on those dates, the work will be rescheduled. Impacted members will be no- tified by letter, email, text, and robocalls in advance of the scheduled outages.have limited space available for residents with medical needs who require power,” Acosta stated.
PEC offered the following guidelines for the outages:
• For safety reasons, members should not ap- proach crews;
• PEC members with serious medical conditions or life-sustaining equipment should arrange for backup equipment or go to another location during outages;
• Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed during the outage. Refrigerators left unopened should keep food cold for about four hours without power, and freezers should keep food cold for about 48 hours; and
• If power is not restored by 3:30 p.m. on the day of the scheduled outage, members should text “outage” to 25022, visit map.mypec.com, report it through the SmartHub app, or call PEC at 888-883-3379.
Call PEC at 888-5544732 to speak with an agent Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information from the city, visit www. horseshoe-bay-tx.gov/pec.
