The Brownsville Public Utilities Board is urging residents to prepare for future storms after this weekend's outages knocked out power to thousands of customers.

The utility board said the blackouts were caused by crews working on storm-damaged transmission lines. Because Brownsville is connected to the ERCOT grid, those repairs affected about 25,000 customers across the city.

"If you're in an outage, we recommend that you disconnect your electronics so the surge doesn't affect them," Brownsville PUB spokesman David Garza said. "If you're able to, buy surge protectors and use those instead."

The board also recommended that residents put together storm safety kits before hurricane season begins.

Officials also suggested buying flashlights and outdoor generators in case of a future outage.