SAN ANTONIO – Flames intensified Monday’s weather conditions in San Antonio, cutting off power to thousands on the South Side for a short time.
The power problems came the same day as many people received an alert on their phones to conserve power.
ERCOT, which manages the state’s power grid, asked for that power conservation. It tracked Monday’s demand, showing the grid was able to keep up with demand amid triple-digit temperatures.
Residents living near Pyron and Hancock avenues said they experienced outages as flames went up at the Pyron CPS Energy substation.
“We heard the transformer pop, but it always pops, so its always no big deal,” said resident Norma Esquivel. This time it was a bigger deal, it knocked out power to her and thousands of her neighbors.
Some nearby businesses were forced to shut down for the day, losing out on potential revenue.
“We start seeing business right around 6 (p.m.), so when the power went out, we’re like, ‘Oh, no.’ But at the same time, this heat is going to heat my building up so quickly that I had to shut down. I didn’t have a choice,” said Norman Velez with Broosters Backyard Icehouse.
The outage happened just hours after the phone alert for conservation was sent out as temperatures reached 107 degrees.
“I was expecting to lose electricity at some point,” Velez said.
In a tweet, CPS Energy said the customers were taken offline for safety. The utility said the cause of the fire would be investigated.
OUTAGE AWARENESS (6:50 PM): A fire at a CPS Energy substation caused an outage on the city's South Side. @SATXFire has since extinguished the fire, and our focus now is to restore power for customers.
— CPS Energy (@cpsenergy) July 11, 2022
(1/2) pic.twitter.com/SySRebeGUD
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