Friday night’s storm nearly sent a tree branch into the roof of Leticia Tapia’s bedroom.
It missed by a few inches, she said Sunday afternoon, pointing to where part of a pecan tree sits in the backyard of her home near Lanier High School on the West Side.
Winds of 50 to 65 mph ripped through San Antonio Friday night and, at the peak, 112,000 CPS Energy customers were without power.
City and utility officials have been scrambling to repair downed power lines and put up cooling centers, but thousands of residents like Tapia were still forced to deal with 100-degree heat when the rain and wind died down.
Left with no air conditioning Saturday, she and her husband spent all day outside before they went to a restaurant to escape the heat, but it was worst when they went to bed.
“Last night, it was so bad, I felt so bad, I almost threw up and my head hurt,” she said of trying to sleep in the heat.
But she said the West Side community has come together in the storm’s aftermath. Across the street, students and teachers from Lanier High School, where Tapia went to school more than 40 years ago, set up canopies and tables to hand out water, chips and ice cream.
Tapia said another group passed out sack lunches to residents who needed them.
Her power came back on early Sunday morning.
“That’s what makes our community good, that people are doing that,” she said. “We always stand together.”
She’s not the only one who feels that way. Other San Antonio residents are coming together to pick up the pieces after Friday night’s storm, like those who live at the Ernest C. Olivares Senior Community on South Brazos Street.
Residents there lost power through Saturday morning. The heat and darkness was stressful, said Gloria Martinez, who has lived in her apartment at the senior community for a decade.
The senior community residents said they had to throw out groceries and medication when they lost electricity and their refrigerators shut off. Others were confined to the second floor by mobility issues and a powerless elevator.
“We all have problems, the anxiety gets to us,” Martinez said.
But many decided to stay through the storm and the subsequent power outage to take care of their neighbors, said Linda Garcia, another resident. Garcia added that the building’s management had come over the weekend to knock on doors and make a hot meal Sunday.
“Some of our residents don’t have transportation or mobility,” said Joann Olveda, the building’s assistant manager.
So she and manager Joe Rodriguez came in Sunday to serve chili dogs. Olveda is still worried, though. Buying food and medication to replace what’s been lost is expensive, particularly for senior residents on fixed incomes.
“It’s not over,” she said. “The worst part is over, but there’s more still to come.”
Outages persist
Other West Side residents are still dealing with power outages. Less than a mile away, the owners of Las Delicias Tacos #1 are trying to deal with a hole in the restaurant’s roof, sagging walls and thousands of pounds of meat threatening to go bad.
“It’s super costly. You lose customers. Families are trying to eat. They’re trying to come after church on a Sunday,” said Mohammed Abdel Aziz. “They want to come have their tacos and spend time together like they’ve always done, and we’re unable to do that right now.”
His family has owned the restaurant for nearly 30 years. They also own a smoke shop next door. Now, they have a backup generator that’s working overtime to keep more than 2,000 pounds of meat — critical and expensive restaurant supplies — cool.
The restaurant will be closed until they can do repairs and get power back on, but Abdel Aziz has been frustrated with lack of clarity as CPS Energy rushes around town to restore power.
The inner West Side is one of San Antonio’s poorest neighborhoods, he pointed out, and he hasn’t had a clear response about when power will be restored.
“If you look in the 78207 area code, it’s all outages,” he said. “If it got hit that hard, you would expect them to be ready to make the repairs happen in a timely manner, and not leave families without AC, businesses without electricity at all.
“It’s a bad situation.”
CPS Energy and City of San Antonio officials say they’re working to resolve issues. As of 4 p.m. on Sunday, 10,394 customers were still affected by outages. That’s down from Friday night’s peak, and the more than 18,000 customers who woke up to outages Sunday morning.
City services and response
The City of San Antonio has designated resilience hubs throughout the city, where families and their pets can stay and access air conditioning, electricity and Wi-Fi.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones announced on Instagram that brush collection will be free at the city facility at 1800 Wurzbach. Extra garbage collection is taking place on Aug. 31, she added.
Jones added that the San Antonio Food Bank distributed meals Sunday and meals and cold water were provided at the San Juan Brady Center.
The emergency response has focused on hospitals. The Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council (STRAC), a local nonprofit that maintains the region’s emergency healthcare system, said it has coordinated with CPS Energy about local hospitals’ energy needs.
“STRAC monitored power impacts involving hospitals, outpatient clinics, dialysis services, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes, escalating critical-facility restoration needs to CPS and coordinating resource requests,” executive director Eric Epley wrote in an email.
He said San Antonio Fire Department and STRAC officials were responding to residents who were medically fragile or oxygen-dependent and that on Sunday there were no unmet transportation needs.
Outside of hospitals or other critical care areas, West Side residents were clearing debris and waiting for their air conditioning to turn back on. Julia Casias lives near Commerce Street. She and her husband have been sleeping in their car because their house is too warm.
“It’s been hot. It’s been frustrating with no AC or anything like that,” she said. “I hope the light comes on today.”
