About 275 Tucson Electric Power customers remained without power Sunday night, down from about 700 earlier in the evening, a spokesman says.
That's out of nearly 56,000 TEP customers who were without power at the peak of the immediate outages caused by Friday's damaging monsoon storms.
"We have made significant progress," said TEP representative Joseph Barrios. He said service should soon be restored for all customers.
"This storm caused damage everywhere," he noted.
While downed power poles were a contributing factor, there were also hundreds of work orders for damaged equipment, including downed metal power lines and other pieces of equipment blown down or damaged, Barrios said.
The type of poles TEP installs also played a role in the restoration efforts. Barrios said approximately 80% of the agency's transmission and distribution line structures are wooden, with the remaining 20% being metal. He explained that they typically replace wooden poles with metal ones, except in hard-to-reach locations where wooden poles are necessary to facilitate work.
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Barrios said wind is usually the biggest culprit in causing damage leading to outages. While hail and rain were present during the storm, wind's force was the primary concern, he said.
Widespread rain, wind and hail ripped through Tucson and surrounding areas July 28, leaving tens of thousands without power. Video courtesy of the University of Arizona.
Eddie Celaya is a breaking news reporter and host of the "Here Weed Go!" podcast. He graduated from Pima Community College and the University of Arizona and has been with the Arizona Daily Star since May 2019.
Eddie Celaya
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