VIDEO UPDATE:  Riverside, Pell City residents without electricity Friday morning

Waking up without lights and heat: That’s what happened to some Alabama Power customers this morning thanks to the cold temperatures.

Shrinking electric lines are to blame for power outages in Riverside and Pell City this morning. 1,300 residents woke up about 6 a.m. without lights and heat.

Turning on the computer would have been impossible this morning for Pell City resident Jennifer Thompson and her four-year-old daughter Madison.

As Jennifer was getting her older children ready for school, the lights went out—and so did the heat.

Thompson said, “It went off and then it came back on for two seconds and we got all excited and then it went back off again and it stayed off.“

Jennifer had no problems getting everyone out the door but she still worried what would the rest of her day be like?

Thompson said, “Oh yeah, you definitely worry about it.  Because you never know when it’s going to come back on and I didn’t know how cold it was going to get.  I was worried about her.  I wanted to make sure she stayed warm.“

Like Jennifer and her family, those affected by this morning’s outage lived mostly in apartments where their heat is also generated by Alabama Power.

Power crews worked on these lines for several hours just to get power and the heat back on to nearby residents.  The lights and heat came back on for the 1,300 residents in both Riverside and Pell City between 9:15 and 10 a.m.

Alabama power believes it has fixed the problem, but cold temperatures tonight could again trigger outages for customers.

Crews will remain on alert, just in case.