AEP outage leaves Edna without power

By Jessica Coleman    
Staff Writer
    As Edna residents prepared to wind down for the evening on May 31, their homes fell dark. Many homes on the south side of town lost power around 8:30 p.m., beginning with a dimming of the lights which eventually faded into complete loss of electricity. 
    AEP representative Elgin Janssen said the entire ordeal began with a bird’s nest on a transformer which caught fire, causing the equipment to need to be shut down in order to safely clear debris. Around 10:30, lights came back on, and then almost immediately off again, due to another transformer failure. This time, the entire city of Edna was affected. 
    Crews worked for hours to restore electric services to Edna, finally restoring services around 2 a.m. 
    Edna isn’t the only area affected by outages. Kingsville lost power Tuesday evening and isn’t slated to have power again until 1 p.m. Wednesday. 
    “At the height of the outage,” said Janssen, “we had 26- or 27,000 customers without power.”
    Jackson Electric Co-op reported only four outages.