TEP works to restore power in Foothills area

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - The community is continuing to recover from the first Monsoon storm of the season. Tucson Electric Power reports about 3,000 outages in the Tucson area, with a majority in the Foothills area.

Crews have been working around the clock since Monday’s storm, but don’t expect power to be completely restored for everyone until Wednesday.

“We understand that if you’re in an outage, it’s having a big impact on your day and on your typical routine,” said Joseph Barrios with TEP. “We’re certainly appreciative of customers that are patient and we want them to know we are working as hard as we can to get the lights back on.”

Due to the prolonged outage, TEP is offering ice stations in the Foothills area, which will remain open until they no longer find a need for them.

“This is where we have the most damage and the highest number of customers that are out of service,” said Barrios. “We are also delivering ice in some cases to other customers. In addition to that, we are trying to inform them about cooling stations and other options they might have to get out of the heat while we work on those repairs.”

The ice stations are at Ace Hardware at 4751 E Sunrise Drive and La Encantada Shopping Center at 2905 E Skyline Drive.

TEP also says there are ways those with power can help.

“If you have blinds or window shades of any sort, use them, because when the sunlight comes in, that lets the heat in as well,” says Barrios. ”The second thing they can do, if you have fans of any sort, use fans. They cool you instead of an air conditioning system that tries to cool your whole home.”

TEP also says they will have an overnight shelter at Catalina High Magnet School starting at 7 pm.

ORIGINAL STORY: The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is warning of road hazards caused by this evening’s monsoon.

PCSD says if you see downed power lines, those lines may still be live and dangerous.

PCSD says this is a partial list of hazards.

Skyline/Alvernon - power lines down
Thornydale/Lambert - vehicle crash with power lines hanging low
Campbell north of Skyline (except for local traffic)
6100 N. Campbell - power lines down
Campbell/Ina - Traffic lights are out
1100 W. San Lucas - power line down
Via Palomita/Sunrise - trees down in roadway
Valley View/Calle de Pantera - power lines down
Campbell/Table Mountain RD - power line down
4000 E. Camino Llanoso - power lines down
Sunrise/Ponatoc - power lines down
Swan/Sunrise - tree in roadway blocking
4800 N. Ponatoc - power lines down

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