Sunday afternoon turned rough and fast across the Borderland, as a burst of strong storms snapped power to thousands of homes and businesses in El Paso County and Doña Ana County. The fast-moving cell rolled along the Rio Grande corridor and into surrounding neighborhoods, cutting electricity in Anthony, Santa Teresa, Vinton, and Mesilla, and leaving parts of northeast El Paso, including Parkland and Chaparral, in the dark. The hit-and-run storm triggered weather alerts and sent utility crews racing to trace lines and reset circuits.
Outage totals and where they hit
According to KFOX14/CBS4, El Paso Electric reported roughly 7,500 customers without power as crews worked across the system to clear storm damage. The station reports that outage logs showed clusters of problems in Anthony, Santa Teresa, Vinton, and Mesilla, along with scattered outages in the Parkland and Chaparral areas of northeast El Paso. KFOX14/CBS4 noted that the utility had been contacted for comment and that restoration work was already underway Sunday afternoon.
Where to check and who to call
El Paso Electric’s outage center and live map remain the main sources for current restoration estimates and a direct way to report local outages. For those tracking the bigger picture across the region, third-party outage aggregators that scrape utility feeds also showed elevated counts on Sunday. Customers can monitor El Paso Electric's outage center or regional dashboards such as PowerOutage.us for real-time updates.
A seasonal pattern of storm-related outages
Summer storms in the Borderland are notorious for flipping breakers and dropping lines, and this latest round fit a familiar pattern of brief but widespread outages. KVIA documented a large April outage that cut power to thousands in far east El Paso, and a January blackout left pockets of Anthony, Canutillo, and northeast El Paso without electricity during the morning rush. Officials say lightning strikes and strong wind gusts are common triggers for the kind of short, high-impact outages crews were working to clean up on Sunday.
Safety and short-term expectations
El Paso Electric is urging customers to report outages and check estimated restoration times through its outage center, and to steer clear of any downed power lines while crews move through neighborhoods. Anyone who spots a downed line should assume it is energized and call 911 immediately. For non-emergencies, customers are asked to use the utility’s online or phone-based outage reporting tools. In the short term, residents can expect crews to focus first on large circuits and critical public-safety infrastructure, with smaller neighborhood lines restored as damage is located and repaired.
