.png)
Snow is falling across San Marcos Thursday morning.
The National Weather Service forecasts flurries through the early afternoon. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 30s before dropping to around 17 degrees overnight. But Thursday’s snow marks the final round of winter weather this week. Temperatures will rise to the 40s on Friday, 50s on Saturday and high 50s on Sunday.
Power outages continue in San Marcos, and across Texas, but the Electric Reliability Council of Texas says it has made “significant progress” overnight in restoring customer power.
“We’re to the point in load restoration where we are allowing transmission owners to bring back any load they can related to this load shed event,” ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woofin said in a press release. “We will keep working around the clock until every single customer has their power back on.”
ERCOT entered its third and highest level of emergency operations because electric demand exceeded available supply at approximately 1:25 a.m. on Sunday. ERCOT added that a significant number of additional generating units tripped offline when the weather worsened overnight while the grid operator was contending with frozen wind turbines and limited gas supply.
ERCOT said customers who remain without power fall into three likely categories: Areas out due to ice storm damage on the distribution system; areas that were taken out of service due to the emergency load shed that need to be restored manually; or large industrial facilities that went offline to help this energy emergency.
For those without power, warming buses are available in San Marcos on Thursday from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Pets are not allowed. The City of San Marcos says to bring water and food with you.
Warming busses are located at Southside Community Center (518 S. Guadalupe St.); K.A.D Korner Store in CM Allen Homes (820 Sturgeion Drive); San Marcos Activity Center (501 E. Hopkins St.); and City Emergency Management Bulding (1402 W. Hopkins St.)
Alongside power issues, City of San Marcos water customers are under a water boil advisory. The city issued the advisory because of water pressure dropping within the distribution system.
The city said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is requiring the city to issue a boil advisory with low water pressures being a result of power interruptions caused by the current winter weather. The advisory lasts until normal pressures resume and water quality lab results show no contamination.
The city said this is only a precautionary measure and doesn’t mean water is contaminated. The possibility of contamination is very low, however, residents may want to boil water prior to consumption or use bottled water, the city said.
Grocery store openings
Both San Marcos H-E-B locations are scheduled to open from 12-5 p.m. on Thursday. A final call will be made by 10 a.m. H-E-B says, however, “at any time, store hours could be adjusted according to operations ability.” Real-time updates regarding store openings and closure can be found at https://newsroom.heb.com/severe-winter-weather-h-e-b-store-operations-real-time-updates.
Walmart San Marcos, located at 1015 State Highway 80, has opened Thursday. "As weather conditions continue to clear, we will be getting our regularly scheduled delivery trucks, and more product will soon be available," Walmart San Marcos says on its Facebook page.
Target, located at 700 Barnes Drive, is open today. A representative said they expect to be open until 8 p.m.
Cuevas Produce, located at 100 Linda Drive, is closed Thursday. Cuevas said it is closed until it can restock.
Restaurant openings
Many restaurants and fast food spots are opening with adjusted hours.
Industry will open at 12 p.m.
Kobe is open from 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. It has stopped its endless sushi until further notice in order to feed and accommodate as many guests as possible.
This will be updated as additional restaurant openings become available.
See a restaurant open today? Let us know, email [email protected]
