Crews continue to clear off power lines, remove branches days after snowstorm

Nov. 12—The metro area is still dealing with the aftermath of last week's storm that produced over a foot of snow in places and caused widespread power outages.

The snow may be gone, but utility crews are continuing to clear power lines and remove broken branches in communities like Corrales, where over 450 trees were removed Monday and Tuesday morning, Davey Tree Surgery Supervisor Carlos Guerrero said.

"It has been nonstop, seven days a week," he said.

In Albuquerque, a majority of the parks experienced "some sort of major branch failure" following the wet snow that blanketed the area, City Forester Sean O'Neill said. He added that there weren't many "tree failures" — just small trees or those that were staggered by the storm.

The city's Department of Municipal Development spokesperson Dan Mayfield said crews responded to about 40 calls to 311 for branches and trees in the roadway in the days following the storm.

The Solid Waste Management Department cleared trees and limbs from medians, helped DMD remove debris on roads and assisted in their proper disposal, Solid Waste Management spokesperson Alex Bukoski said.

O'Neill said while there have been snowstorms that caused tree and branch failures, last week's storm was a "little more unique" because "we hadn't seen any trees going dormant yet."

Public Service Company of New Mexico spokesperson Kelly-Renae Huber said the storm caused hundreds of outages across many service areas. PNM and support crews worked "outage by outage" to restore power — work that began early Thursday morning and continued into Saturday.

"At the peak on Thursday, more than 50,000 customers were affected at one time," she said.

Huber said more than 200 crew members from PNM, contract companies and neighboring utilities El Paso Electric and Southwestern Public Service remained in the field until Saturday, when power was finished being restored.

"We are grateful to our dedicated PNM team, the many skilled line workers who came to our assistance from El Paso Electric and SPS to help accelerate the restoration process, and to the many people who encouraged and supported our crews as they worked tirelessly day and night to restore our customers," said Mike Mertz, senior vice president of PNM Operations.

Guerrero said his crew came to the metro area last week after spending months in Ruidoso clearing room for new power lines to replace those downed by summer fires and floods.

"Everybody was happy to see us," he said.

Guerrero said people have offered his crew lunches. Some give them cookies and doughnuts while they work at night.

"It's amazing because everyone sees what we're doing," he said. "It's not easy (but) we're helping the community."