Texas Governor Greg Abbott detailed his plans on Wednesday to restore power to millions of residents who had to go without brutal and deadly winter storm. As temperatures remain well below freezing, the state faces criticism for widespread outages that have left many Texans struggling to stay warm.
As of Wednesday morning, nearly 3 million families were without power.
Abbott said that nearly 40,000 megawatts of power remain off, due to mechanical problems, gas shortages and weather problems. But he added that as of midnight, 6,000 megawatts – enough to power about 1.2 million homes, he said – were added to the grid, and he said that probably thousands of megawatts would be added soon.
The governor also announced that he has signed an order that will prevent companies from selling natural gas outside the state and will instead order the fuel to be sold to power generators in the state.
“I understand that people are furious that it happened … Let’s put the energy back,” said ERCOT CEO Bill Magness, the energy utility that supplies most of Texas, to CBS News.
Texas is the only state that has its own power grid. The network is not regulated by the federal government, and many blame the lack of federal regulation for its failure during the storm.
Abbott promised an investigation into the utility. Magness said he welcomed the investigation, but defended how the dealership is handling the crisis.
“I think the fundamental decisions that our traders made most likely could have prevented a catastrophic blackout,” said Magness. “The result of preventing that catastrophic blackout, unfortunately, ended up being a long period of interruptions like we’ve never seen before.”
“It is a very terrible time to be in this situation with the climate we are experiencing, especially, but we are going to reactivate these services,” he added. “Let’s get these people up and running. It’s the number one priority now to do that.”
Low temperatures also caused problems with the water, as the pipes burst and the water treatment plants lost energy. Millions of Texans are now under a request for water to boil, officials said on Wednesday.
The storm was also blamed for at least 24 deaths, 11 of which occurred in Texas, officials said.
Abbott also faced criticism for having dealt with the crisis. In a statement on Wednesday night, Texas Democratic Party President Gilberto Hinojosa said, “Texas is in a terrible situation. Texans are dying. Houses are being destroyed, people are cold and hungry and we have no idea when things will start to return to normal because our state government continues to fail. “
Omar Villafranca contributed reporting.