Lometa hit hard by outages, warming station opens

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More than 2,000 Lometa-area residences were without steady electrical power from early Monday morning to Tuesday. 

Lometa Police Department announced on Tuesday evening that city hall would open as a warming center to those in dire need, and the city would provide cots and blankets for use. Residents should bring their own pillows. At that time, city hall still was without have electricity or water, but a generator was running to keep the building warmer. For more details, Lometa-area residents can call 512-564-3320.

Temperatures have been below freezing for about six days in much of the county and plummeted to 1 degrees on Tuesday near Lometa. .

As of Tuesday morning, the electric substations owned by LCRA in Lometa and Evant had no power, according to Hamilton County Electric Cooperative Director of Office Services Joe Raibourn. 

The Lometa substation provides power to Lometa, Adamsville, Nix, and the Bend area, serving 2,695 meters.

Hamilton County Electric Cooperative provides energy from the substations to customers but can not influence the substations’ power supplies, Raibourn said.

Customers have lost power for up to two or three hours at a time, and some receive power for just 15 to 30 minutes before losing it again. 

Raibourn said he expects to find after power is fully restored to the substations that some Hamilton County Electric Cooperative lines are down, and he said employees will work to repair them expediently.

“We’ll probably have some outages of our own,” he said. “But we simply can’t shoot it with no power on to find out where power is lacking.” 

Customers in Lampasas — including assisted living facilities — are also enduring rolling outages. 

Due to low water pressure, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has required the City of Lampasas PWS ID 1410001 public water system to notify all customers to boil their water prior to consumption (e.g., washing hands/face, brushing teeth, drinking, etc). Children, seniors, and persons with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable to harmful bacteria, and all customers should follow these directions).

To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking, and ice making should be boiled and cooled prior to use for drinking water or human consumption purposes. The water should be brought to a vigorous rolling boil and then boiled for two minutes.

St. Mary Catholic Church in Lampasas has opened a temporary warming station.