DALLAS — Dallas officials say crews are still working to restore power to customers after Tuesday’s storms and it may take “months” to finish collecting all the debris.
As of about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oncor reported about 170,806 customers remain without power in Dallas County. In the city of Dallas, officials estimate about 109,000 outages remaining as of Wednesday afternoon.
Oncor Wednesday estimated power will be restored to most customers by Friday evening.
“The damage is very widespread. There’s not one specific area that we can point to and say these folks will be on in a few hours, these folks will be on Friday or Saturday,” Grant Cruise with Oncor said. “Access still remains a major issue that we’re facing. A lot of vegetation management crews are arriving in the area. We’re bringing in mutual assistance from a number of neighboring states.”
About 120 traffic signals in the city remain on flash and 141 remain without power as of 1 p.m. Wednesday, officials say. City officials sought to remind residents to treat traffic signals that are flashing or without power as a four-way stop sign.
Scott Pacot of Dallas Fire Rescue said his department responded to 322 crashes Tuesday compared to 219 Memorial Day.
“We did see an increase, but it was a lot related to the storm and some of the aftermath,” Pacot said.
Anyone who sees downed trees is asked to call 311.
Some city facilities were also impacted by storm damage and power loss.
“There were several facilities throughout the city that sustained some level of damage. We mostly saw that as it relates to wind damage like you’re seeing at commercial businesses and residences,” said Dallas Director of Emergency Management Travis Houston. “It’s my understanding at this time that there were no city facilities that had major damage outside of the power loss.”
One of the buildings that sustained damage from the wind is a city-owned office tower at 7800 N. Stemmons Freeway that the city bought for its building permitting department. That building sustained wind damage to glass panels near the entry to the building, officials say.
Officials say building services staff have cleaned and temporarily secured the site. Permanent restoration will be coordinated and completed with a glass vendor.
The city relocated employees from the building in the 7800 block of North Stemmons Freeway recently after the building had issues with a fire inspection, as WFAA previously reported.
Garbage and recycle collections are also delayed in Dallas by one day this week for all customers beginning Tuesday. Tuesday routes will be collected on Wednesday, Wednesday routes on Thursday, Thursday routes on Friday, and Friday routes on Saturday.
Dallas Director of Sanitation Clif Gillespie said clearing the debris will take time.
“Because the debris from the storm is so widespread all across the city, we think it may take up to a couple of months to fully get everything picked up and return to a number collection schedule for brush and bulky items,” said Gillespie. “We are scaling up massively the number of crews that we have collecting storm debris through use of our on-call contractors that are already coming into town.”
Gillespie said there’s no intention to fine anyone for oversized setouts. He said the normal limit is 10 cubic yards and that’s been extended to 20 cubic yards.
Dallas residents may self-haul waste to the landfill or a transfer station at no cost. See rules and hours of operation here. Residents may also consider utilizing debris removal services of a private company, officials say.
