VIDOR, Texas — A Vidor neighborhood's power problems are finally fixed after frequent outages.
Residents living off East Railroad Street say they have been dealing with these outages consistently since 2023.
One of the residents, Katelyn Maxwell, tells us she was in constant contact with Entergy and the Public Utilities Commission hoping to get the problem resolved.
So, 12News contacted Entergy. After that, Entergy went out to the sight and now the company says the lights in the area will be staying on for good.
Maxwell says that since December 2023 frequent power outages have plagued their neighborhood.
"We're paying customers, like just fix the problem," Maxwell said.
She was one of reportedly dozens of other Vidor residents in the neighborhood dealing with frequent power outages.
"We had some outages last summer, towards the beginning of the summer, not as bad as it is now," said Maxwell.
Not only was it inconvenient, but it also hit Maxwell's wallet.
"We worry about our food spoiling, especially after we go to the grocery store and buy $200 for the food. We don't want all of our food getting ruined," Maxwell said.
It wasn't just food down the drain.
"It's wear and tear on our appliances when there's a hard stop and start on your washer and dryer and your A/C unit. We ended up having to replace our compressor and our A/C unit, which they said it's supposed to last a lot longer than what ours did... That's money out of pocket," Maxwell told 12News.
Maxwell reported the problem for months, with only temporary fixes.
"And obviously our bill isn't being reflected with all these power outages. Our bill's not going down," she said.
That's when 12News stepped in.
"It's definitely an unusual situation, one I've yet to come across," said Jim Malain, the customer service manager for Entergy Texas.
Malain says different rotating linemen would respond and restore power. But they eventually found out that the problem was right over their heads.
"We actually had a service man come out here and look at the lines while the train was going underneath. And then he saw the problem with the lines swaying into one another, causing a fault which caused the protective equipment to operate," Malain said.
He says plans are in motion to keep the power on and paying customers happy.
"So they were able to straighten the poles up as much as they could, bringing the lines up higher up off the tracks," Malain said.
He says upon further inspection, they've found several other problems, including deteriorating electrical poles. Malain assures residents the construction for those will begin within the next couple of months.
We reached back out to Maxwell, who hopes these solutions will be a permanent fix.