Over Two Million Texans Lose Power During Winter Storm, Rolling Blackouts Continue

snow whiteout
Josh Hild via Unsplash
Amy Furr

Over two million homes and businesses in Texas are without power Monday morning as winter storm Uri sweeps across the central United States.

“The agency that oversees Texas’ electric grid declared an ‘energy emergency alert three’ early Monday after the grid experienced a systemwide failure,” the Weather Channel reported.

The alert turned into rotating outages that are likely to continue through Tuesday morning, according to grid managers.

About 2.5 million people were without power as of 9:00 a.m., the outlet tweeted:

“Every grid operator and every electric company is fighting to restore power right now,” explained Bill Magness, who is president and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

The report continued:

Texas set a winter peak demand record Sunday night, and that demand was expected to increase Monday and Tuesday as temperatures fall into the low single digits or colder. The rolling outages were supposed to last 15 to 45 minutes, utility operators said, but the bitter cold was impacting some remote systems and causing the outages to last longer than planned.

Texans are being asked to conserve power where they are able.

Residents should keep their thermostat set at 68 degrees, avoid using appliances such as dishwashers, washing machines, and dryers, and turn off non-essential lights and other appliances.

On Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced that the White House issued a Federal Emergency Declaration for his state in response to the severe weather.

“This Federal Emergency Declaration authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide emergency protective measures for mass care and sheltering and Direct Federal Assistance for all 254 counties in Texas,” the press release said.

The surge of cold air will settle in Monday evening into Tuesday morning, so residents should expect overnight temperatures to drop near zero or below in some northwest counties, according to WFAA.

“We will still be battling a north wind up to 20 mph, so that will make it feel well below zero. Some locations could feel like close to -30 below zero early Tuesday morning,” the outlet said.

Just after 7:00 a.m., meteorologist Pete Delkus tweeted radar images of the snow moving toward the east:

The record cold weather could continue through Wednesday before temperatures begin to warm up toward the end of the weekend, the WFAA report said.

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