Downtown Celina is getting hit with a one-two punch of melted ice cream and fried nerves as a wave of hours-long power outages slams local businesses, cutting into lunch rushes, spoiling inventory and forcing doors to close in the middle of the day.
Stella’s Ice Cream says it has already tossed more than $70,000 worth of product in the past month after freezers went warm during blackouts, a loss owners describe as gutting. The outages are coming without warning, sometimes during peak service.
"We just don't know, so you could be in the middle of your day and then the whole thing goes off," Katie Dunn, who runs Nowhere Bar and Little Wooden Penguin, told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. Dunn said the most recent outage dragged on for nearly 12 hours and wiped out prepared meals and refrigerated stock.
Oncor Launches Reliability Project
Oncor says it has kicked off a multiphase reliability improvement project in Celina, fast-tracking the work in response to the outages and the city’s rapid growth. The utility lists upgrades that include installing more than 100 new poles, replacing about 400 crossarms and adding advanced circuit switches to better isolate problem spots and keep wider areas from going dark.
The company expects the majority of that work to wrap up this summer, according to Oncor.
City Pushes For Upgrades
City officials have not exactly been quiet about their frustration. After months of problems, the Celina City Council took formal action, with a late 2025 agenda item urging Oncor to bolster electric delivery infrastructure in and around downtown to cut down on future outages. That move, recorded in the city’s meeting agenda, laid the groundwork for business leaders to press the utility more directly, according to the City of Celina.
What The Upgrades Will Change
Oncor’s plan is centered on hardening the local distribution system. That means swapping out aging poles and hardware, deploying more advanced fault sensing and stepping up targeted vegetation management, all intended to reduce outage risk and speed up restoration when things do go wrong.
The utility is warning customers that some of this work will require planned outages, along with occasional road or lane closures while crews are on site. Oncor is urging customers to report any outages and to sign up for alerts as the project moves forward.
Downtown Businesses Demand Answers
On the ground, managers say the uncertainty is grinding them down and putting livelihoods on the line. Some warn that if the pattern continues, temporary closures could become permanent.
"It could require a shutdown at this point," Mangiamo Italian Market & Deli manager Casey Harper told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, adding that employees and vendors alike depend on steady hours and reliable operations.
In response, the Celina Economic Development Corp. has called a downtown business meeting for Wednesday morning at City Hall, where Oncor is expected to face questions about its timeline and next steps, according to the station’s report.
Until the utility’s upgrades catch up with Celina’s growth, local owners are stuck improvising. Generators, trimmed-down menus and tighter inventory control have become the new normal as they try to survive the rolling outages. Oncor’s schedule calls for most of the work to be finished this summer, and downtown merchants are hoping this week’s meeting helps turn that promise into a faster, steadier flow of electricity.
