April 9, 2025—Kerrville Public Utility Board (KPUB) responded to an animal-related outage in the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 9, 2025, that affected a portion of its service area in central Kerrville.
The outage began at approximately 12:29 a.m. after a ringtail cat made contact with equipment at KPUB’s Stadium Substation. The incident affected 3,819 of KPUB’s 24,420 customers—approximately 15.84% of its customer base. Impacted areas included portions of Highway 16 between Interstate 10 and Highway 27.
KPUB crews were immediately dispatched and worked as quickly and safely as possible to restore power. Service was fully restored by 2:24 a.m.
“We understand the inconvenience outages cause,” said Allison Bueché, KPUB Director of Customer and Community Relations. “KPUB responded quickly and safely to restore power swiftly for our community.”
Outages of this scale are rare for KPUB, which consistently ranks among the most reliable electric providers in the nation. According to KPUB’s FY 2024 data and the industry-standard SAIDI index (System Average Interruption Duration Index), KPUB customers experienced an average outage time of just 11 minutes—compared to national averages of 74 minutes for public power utilities and 128 minutes for private utilities.
“Outside of major events like storms, public power utilities like KPUB are among the most reliable electricity providers in the country,” Bueché added. “We’re committed to providing safe, reliable, and affordable power.”
The SAIDI figures cited exclude major event days and are sourced from the American Public Power Association (APPA).
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