ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – As of Friday morning, PNM reported that there is now a little more than 1,000 without power. Thursday afternoon, there were more than 2,400 customers without power following Tuesday’s strong winds. PNM said people should prepare in case repairs take even longer.

The Encino Gardens is one apartment building in Albuquerque that’s been in the dark for nearly 48 hours. “We’re still waiting. It’s a complete outage,” resident Janet Chavez said. “So the refrigerators- we have no food. Food is spoiled. We have no elevators, just the emergency stairs and many of us cannot get up and down them.”

Chavez added that many of the people living at the five-story complex off Central and Zuni are older or disabled and can’t take the stairs while the elevator is down. PNM said crews are still working around the clock and prioritizing the calls to clean up downed power lines and poles to restore power for a large number of customers at once.

PNM Spokesperson Meaghan Cavanaugh adds that the power restoration time estimates on the PNM website could change. “The restore process time takes time, sometimes we find more damage as we assess so it is natural for restore times to be more fluid in a situation like this,” Cavanaugh said.

They’re suggesting people prepare a backup plan in case it takes days to restore power. That could include staying with a friend or family member.

People can sign up for text updates about their outage by texting #ALERT to 78766; or text #OUT to report an outage. PNM has restored power to more than 13,000 customers since Wednesday morning.

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