In recent months, a number of East Dallas neighborhoods have had power outages. I have talked with the management staff at Texas Utilities, including CEO Mr. Earl Nye, about these concerns. Mr. Nye grew up in Lakewood and is aware of the difficulty some of our neighbors have had.
In most cases, the outages were widespread throughout the City. On June 1, when extremely high winds swept through Dallas, the most severe damages occurred in the north and northeast sections of Dallas. The storm affected 348,000 customers and inflicted almost $2 million in damage to the TU distribution system. The worst problems were concentrated in pockets with heavy vegetation.
In an effort to deter some of these problems in the future, TU has tree-trimming crews, presently working in some of our neighborhoods. TU knows that tree trimming can be distressing, but they want to ensure us they are using Vegetation Management Specialists and the guidelines developed by the International Society of Arboriculture and the Texas Forest Service.
The TU Electric staff also has determined there are some unusual outages and power surges in some of our neighborhoods that may not be related to trees. They are busy accessing the problems and have offered to meet with me in six weeks to discuss some solutions.
TU Electric staff already is scheduled to meet with the Cloisters neighborhood, and some of the staff will be available for questions at some of the fall town hall meetings.
If you have questions or problems in the interim, you can call Ms. Jerry Larmay at 608-7110 or send her a FAX at 698-7318.
In the event there is a major storm, Ms. Larmay will no doubt be checking her messages at all hours.
White Rock Lake Update
A new phone number at City Hall is available to provide recorded updates about the White Rock Lake dredging project. This phone number is 747-LAKE (5253).
The dredging project continues on the schedule announced last December, with final completion scheduled for the summer of 1999. We have now reached a critical time in the project, which is the selection of sites to place sediment dredged from the lake.
After reviewing approximately 76 sites, the list has been reduced to 16. The engineers must identify specific pipeline routes to the sites and develop plans about how the material will be used at the sites. This is necessary to estimate the cost of the pipeline and site preparation.
One of the most important factors in choosing sites is to determine the consequences of the material in the new location. Can it eliminate a flooding problem? Can it be used to build a new ballpark?
Public meetings to discuss sites will soon be held in communities that might be impacted. Acceptability by the surrounding neighborhoods is a key component of the dredging project.
Watch for meeting announcements in your newspapers, at public libraries and through notification by the City to residents in the immediate areas.
