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ARLINGTON -- Mayor Robert Cluck criticized Oncor on Tuesday for poor customer service during last month's record snowstorm, which left more than 20,000 Arlington households without power for days.
City Hall and council members were flooded with phone calls from residents during the Valentine's Day weekend, saying they were not receiving a response from the electric company about when their power would be restored.Cluck, whose west Arlington home went without power for four days, said he could reach only an Oncor answering machine to report his outage."The communication was not good. I was very disappointed," said Cluck, who added that the city could have done a better job responding to residents' concerns.Steve Taylor, Oncor's area manager, told council members at Tuesday's meeting that the company's voice response system received more than 700,000 calls during the outage, which affected more than 500,000 customers in Dallas-Fort Worth.Oncor plans to bring in more customers service agents so residents can speak with a live person instead of leaving a message.The company is also considering posting information on its Web site to provide customers with status updates on power restoration."The communication was horrible. It was very, very bad," Taylor said. "We are going to have better communication, I promise you that."The city is also looking to improve its storm response, possibly providing kitchen facilities and temporary shelter during extended power outages, Deputy City Manager Bob Byrd said.The city also hopes to post maps online showing what parts of the city are affected, and it also hopes to give residents a reasonable estimate of when power will be restored, he said.Signs of the snowstorm are still evident nearly a month later, with piles of limbs and brush sitting at the curbside of neighborhood streets.City officials estimate that they have collected half the debris set out for pickup and say it could take weeks to collect the rest.So far, the city has spent about $105,000 for debris collection. The limbs and branches are taken to the landfill in far north Arlington, where they are mulched and sold to customers. Arlington residents can pick up a large bag of mulch for free, Byrd said.SUSAN SCHROCK, 817-390-7639Candidate forum: Council candidates and Arlington school board candidates will answer questions at the Young Men for Arlington's candidate forum Wednesday night. Doors open at 6 p.m. at the University of Texas at Arlington in the Lone Star Room of the Mavericks Activity Center.Purvis House : The historic Purvis House will be torn down. The Arlington Housing Authority will provide the city $75,000 for the demolition of the 1940s house at Cooper and Main streets. The once-stately two-story home was built by Dixon Purvis, who served on the council in the late 1950s and early '60s. The city bought the house and 1-acre corner lot for about $400,000 in grant funds, intending to clear the site for redevelopment, but the demolition was delayed while council members considered spending an estimated $200,000 to restore the dilapidated home.
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