It's Hurricane Season: Plan for Power Outages

Texas City, Texas

Texas-New Mexico Power is marking the start of hurricane season by letting customers know that it has plans in place to address large-scale power outages that could result if another hurricane strikes the Gulf Coast.

Customers also should include in their hurricane plans what steps they will take if they will be without power for a number of days because of damage to our equipment.

TNMP's plans will include bringing a small army of employees and contractors to repair damaged equipment and restore power.

"We monitor any storm threatening our service area, but it's impossible to predict what damage will be caused or the exact impact on our customers," TNMP President Neal Walker said.

"If a hurricane is coming, we'll have our employees, our contractors and even other utilities' employees getting ready. Our first priority has to be safety - for them and for the public - so we hope customers appreciate the importance we put in having everyone work carefully and deliberately in restoring power."

After a severe storm, TNMP makes aerial and ground assessments of our equipment to ensure the right resources such as the number of crews and materials needed to repair damaged equipment.

The highest priorities will be locations like water-treatment plants, sewer lift stations and police and fire stations. Priority is given to circuits with a large number of customers and shorter restoration times.

Customers' Tools for Hurricane Restoration Updates

After a hurricane, customers can obtain power-restoration updates at tnmp.com/hurricane, twitter.com/tnmp or facebook.com/texasnewmexicopower.

TNMP will be unable to provide restoration estimates for any individual properties, but will give our best overall estimates for individual communities. Depending on the severity of the outage, TNMP will determine the number of updates posted on these communication channels.

Although forecasters are predicting a slower than usual hurricane season this year, restoration after catastrophic events such as hurricanes can take days and even weeks to complete, and customers should prepare accordingly:

  • Customers who depend on powered life support equipment should plan to evacuate and, if power is lost, should remain evacuated until they know power has been restored.
  • Electric garage doors won't open if the power is out. Be sure to have a door key so you can re-enter after an evacuation.
  • Before the storm, turn off or unplug any unnecessary electrical equipment, especially sensitive electronics such as computers and televisions.
  • Check that emergency equipment such as flashlights, battery-operated and radios are in working order.
  • If you have space in your freezer, consider filling plastic containers with water, leaving about an inch of space inside each one. Place the containers in the freezer. The frozen water will help keep food cold if the power goes out by displacing air that can warm up quickly with ice that keeps cold for several hours without additional refrigeration.
  • If you plan on using a generator during an outage, please check the manufacturer's safety warnings in advance. Set up and run well away from a home or business due to the risk of carbon monoxide and directly power only individual appliances and not your entire home or business. Please view more portable generator safety information from the Center for Disease Control.

TNMP's Gulf Coast service area includes Texas City, Dickinson, League City, Friendswood, Alvin, La Marque, Angleton, Sweeny, West Columbia, Brazoria, Bailey's Prairie, Hillcrest Village and Holiday Lakes. See a map of the areas TNMP serves at tnmp.com/about-us/service-areas.

Texas-New Mexico Power is a transmission and distribution service provider that delivers power to about 230,000 homes and businesses on behalf of retail electric providers in Texas. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of PNM Resources.

Media contact
Eric Paul: 409-949-5685