By Scott Harvey
– We may be in the clear for now from potential rolling blackouts, but the heat shows no signs of letting up and has some residents worried what's still in store for August.
Eunice Mauldin, of Klondike, says when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas issued the blackouts in the winter, it was a struggle. And in an attempt to conserve electricity, she's only cooling a portion of her home currently. That may be a problem should rolling blackouts be issued longer than the 15-20 minutes officials did earlier this year.
"I have four Chihuahuas and at this moment I'm not cooling the whole house I'm just cooling the living room," Mauldin says. "So the rest of my house is the same temperature as it is outside."
Mauldin says she's been sure to check on her neighbors during this stretch of 100-degree heat, and has asked her mother, who lives in Abilene, to move in amid fears that her evaporative water cooler isn't getting the job done.
"She's got a double whammy because it's [the air conditioner] hooked up to the water so she's got to use water for the evaporative cooler and the electricity to run it. She's having some trouble right now so just in the past three days we've discussed that she's moving back down here with me."
Mauldin says in her 30 years in Texas, this is the hottest she can recall it ever being.