Oncor, Dallas Really Wants Lights (and Heat) Kept On at City Hall and Convention Center

By Robert Wilonsky Wed., Feb. 2 2011 at 8:58 AM

Categories: City Hall

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Justin Terveen

Personally, I'd love nothing more than to see the council chambers go dark during this morning's briefing. Need something to liven up that ho-hum agenda that includes runaway shopping carts and a look at the Mayor's Youth Fitness Initiative -- or MyFi, as it's called. Besides, what glorious irony: That thing's funded by Oncor, remember?

Anyway.

This just in from Frank Librio, the city's public information officer (along with an updated clarification):

The City has requested that, if possible, City Hall and the Dallas Convention Center (which is hosting the NFL Experience) be exempt from rotating power outages. City Hall is open today for the Dallas City Council Briefing and other public business and it is also where the Emergency Operations Center is located for Super Bowl week. The EOC is operational 24 hours a day during Super Bowl Week monitoring, and responding if needed, to public safety issues associated with hundreds of special events. These operations are critical. Some libraries and/or recreation centers and other City facilities may be impacted by the rotating power outages.

Also, there will be many dark traffic signals and subsequent malfunction issues associated with the rotating power outages. Please remind commuters that signals may be dark and to proceed with caution. State Law requires the drivers stop at a dark traffic signal. The City will be assigning extra staff to restore traffic signal operations through out the day.

Clarification: The City of Dallas is cooperating with the power shedding plan implemented by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). There are a number of city facilities and traffic signals that are currently being affected. City Hall, which houses the 911 call center and the Emergency Operations Center, is considered a critical facility so it would not be affected.

Speaking of rolling blackouts, Dallas Area Rapid Transit sends word: "20 minute service for DART Rail. Rolling blackouts are causing additional delays throughout the system."

And while we're getting all community announcementy here: Check out the modified garbage pick-up schedule for this week. Long story short: There won't be none.

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