Winter Storm Results In More Than 100 Downed Trees In Plano

PLANO, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - The biggest problem in Plano has been trees breaking under the weight of ice or the force of the wind.

As of 2:30 p.m. Thursday, a city spokesperson said they've gotten more than 100 calls about fallen trees.

With stronger winds kicking up, more are expected to come down.

The city says some of this is due to last February's long freeze – which damaged a lot of trees.

Over the last year, the city's identified more than 7,000 that are in danger of falling.

About 2,500 were deemed "high priority."

The city's been mailing homeowners about any on their property that have been flagged – and 60% of those – the city reports - were safely removed.

But there are still a lot out there – and some that are now coming down onto roads and sidewalks.

"What we're asking residents to do is move them off those roadways, alleys, sidewalks if they're small enough if they can do it safely," said Plano spokesperson Steve Stoler. "Otherwise they can call our public works department and we'll come out and move the trees for them."

When trees collapse, they can bring down power lines.

CBS 11 found dozens of utility trucks positioned at Plano ISD's Clark Stadium – all of them from an Alabama provider in town to help out Oncor respond to calls.

People in Plano have apparently stayed off the roads as police said they've only gotten a report of one accident since midnight – and it was a minor one.

Meantime, in nearby McKinney, heading into the week, Stephanie Bayer was already feeling nervous about the power situation given what her family experienced last year.

"It was out last year for three days. Not straight, it would come on for about three hours at a time — and so we would have some heat, but yeah it was off for the better part of three days."

This year — seeing Governor Abbott's confidence that the state's power grid would hold up— she felt better, but says Mother Nature had other plans.

Her neighborhood lost power Thursday for more than 17 hours.

"You know this one wasn't a planned outage. This one was due to the weather, but it feels a lot like it because it feels so long," she said.