Texas Gov. Greg Abbott outlined his plans Wednesday to power recovery to the millions of inhabitants who had to make do in the midst of a cruel and deadly winter storm. As temperatures remain well below freezing, the state has been criticized for the widespread outages that have left many Texans struggling to stay warm.
As of Wednesday morning, nearly 3 million households had no power.
Abbott said nearly 40,000 megawatts of power remained offline due to mechanical problems, lack of gas and weather problems. But he added that 6,000 megawatts had been added from midnight – enough to power about 1.2 million homes, he said – that he would probably add thousands more megawatts soon.
The governor also announced that he had signed an order that would prevent businesses from selling natural gas outside the state, and instead sell the fuel to generators in the state.
“I understand that people are angry because it happened … Let’s get power back,” Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, the power provider that supplies most of Texas, told CBS News.
Texas is the only state that has its own power grid. The network is not regulated by the federal government, and many blamed the lack of federal regulation for its failure during the storm.
Abbott promised an investigation into the utility. Magness said he welcomed the inquiry, but said he was “defending” the crisis.
“I think the fundamental decisions that our operators very likely made could have prevented a catastrophic eclipse,” Magness said. “The outcome to prevent the catastrophic eclipse was, unfortunately, a long period of disruption like we have not seen before.”
“It’s a very terrible time to be in the situation especially with the weather, but we will rebuild the services,” he added. “We will get the people, and their power is turned on. It is the first priority to do so.”
The steep temperatures also led to water problems as pipes burst and water treatment plants lost power. Millions of Texans are now under a boiling water order, officials said Wednesday.
The storm also blamed at least 24 deaths, 11 of which occurred in Texas, officials said.
Omar Villafranca reported.