AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Texas network operators said on Friday that the electrical system was back to normal for the first time since a winter storm cut power to more than 4 million customers.
Minor interruptions still remained on Friday. But Bill Magness, chairman of the Texas Electric Reliability Council, says the network again has sufficient capacity to supply power to the entire network.
When electricity and heat returned to homes in Texas, water problems remained, as cities continued with boiling water warnings and repaired broken pipes and water pipes.
Victor Hernandez, left, and Luis Martinez fill their water containers with a hose from a tap in Haden Park, Thursday, February 18, 2021 in Houston. Texas officials ordered 7 million people to boil tap water before drinking it after days of record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and froze pipes. (Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle via AP)
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More than 190,000 homes and businesses were left without power in Texas, according to poweroutage.us, down from about 3 million two days earlier.
Winter storms also left more than 330,000 from Virginia to Louisiana without power and about 71,000 in Oregon were still experiencing a week-long outage after a massive ice and snow storm.
Snow and ice moved to the Appalachians, northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania and later to the northeast, as the extreme climate was responsible for the deaths of at least 58 people, including a Tennessee farmer trying to save two calves that apparently roamed a frozen lake and a 17-year-old Oklahoma girl who fell into a frozen lake.
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An increasing number of people perish trying to stay warm. In the western Texas town of Abilene, officials said six people died from the cold – including a 60-year-old man found dead in his bed in his freezing home. In the Houston area, a family died of carbon monoxide when the car stopped in the garage.
Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Bob Fenton said on Friday that the teams were in Texas with fuel, water, blankets and other supplies.
“What worries me most is making sure people stay warm,” said Fenton on “CBS This Morning,” while urging unheated people to go to a shelter or heating center.
Allan Woodson rests in a cozy shelter at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church on West 15th Street in downtown Austin, Texas, Thursday, February 18, 2021. Church members opened the shelter on Sunday and have sheltered and fed more than 20 homeless during the winter storm. (Jay Janner / Austin American-Statesman via AP)
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Rotating outages in Texas could return if demand for electricity increases as people recover energy and heat, said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations for the council.
Increasing misery: The climate has damaged drinking water systems. Authorities ordered 7 million people – a quarter of the population in the country’s second largest state – to boil tap water before drinking it, after the record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and plumbing. In Abilene, a man who died in a health center when the lack of water pressure made medical treatment impossible.
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Water pressure dropped after the lines froze and because many people left the taps dripping to keep them from freezing, said Toby Baker, executive director of the Texas Environmental Quality Commission. Abbott asked residents to shut off the water to prevent further broken pipes and preserve pressure from the municipal system.