Heavy winds hit Odessa

Heavy winds gusted through the Permian Basin Tuesday downing power lines, snapping trees and leaving hundreds without power for much of the evening. Gusts of more than 60 mph caused minor problems in the Odessa-Midland area, while triple-digit blasts were registered in the Guadalupe Mountains, the National Weather Service said.

In Odessa, winds damaged the Starbright Village in McKinney Park and toppled the city Christmas tree, prompting officials to close the area until further notice. Police said they received at least 10 reports of downed power lines, but dispatchers said none were believed to have caused a fire. 

Sue Mercer, an Oncor spokeswoman, said the winds snapped utility poles around the Permian Basin. Four were broken in Odessa, leading to significant outages at times. Around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, when the winds were at their fiercest, Mercer said 860 residences in Odessa were without power.

More than 400 people in Monahans lost power when Oncor temporarily lost one of its feeders.

Technicians were expected to work through the night to restore power, but Mercer said some residents could wake up without electricity.

“When you have this number of scattered outages, sometimes it takes a while to get to some of technicians to the location,” Mercer said. “When storms like this hit, we’re just really at the mercy of nature.”

Much of West Texas was affected by the winds, though authorities reported only minor problems late Tuesday. In Pecos, police said the gusts blew down a street sign in the 1400 block of Eddy Street south of Interstate 20. Ward County sheriff’s officials, meanwhile, said they received at least four calls regarding downed lines.

Douglas Cain, a National Weather Service forecaster, said the wind event Tuesday was one of the most significant in the past two years in the Permian Basin. Forecasters likened the strength of the winds to a similar event that affected West Texas in early 1996, when widespread damage and a number of fatalities were attributed to the deadly winds.

“It worked out about how we expected,” Cain said.