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Texas Governor Greg Abbott detailed his plans on Wednesday for restore power to the millions of people who had to do without a brutal and deadly winter storm. As temperatures remain well below freezing, the state has come under fire for widespread blackouts that have left many Texans struggling to stay warm.
As of Wednesday morning, nearly 3 million homes had no electricity.
Abbott said nearly 40,000 megawatts of electricity remained offline, due to mechanical issues, lack of gas and weather issues. 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 thousands more megawatts would likely go. to be added soon.
The governor also announced that he had signed an order that will prevent companies from selling natural gas outside the state and instead require that the fuel be sold to state power producers.
“I understand people are angry that this has happened … Let’s turn the power back on,” CEO Bill Magness of ERCOT, the electric utility that powers most of Texas, told CBS News.
Texas is the only state that has its own power grid. The network is not federally regulated, and many have blamed the lack of federal regulation for its failure during the storm.
Abbott has promised an investigation into the utility. Magness said he welcomed the investigation, but defended the utilities’ handling of the crisis.
“I think the fundamental decisions made by our operators could very possibly have prevented a catastrophic power outage,” said Magness. “The result of preventing this catastrophic power outage has unfortunately turned out to be a long period of blackouts unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
“It’s a very terrible time to be in this situation with the weather we have especially, but we will restore these services,” he added. “We’re going to get these people, their power. It’s the number one priority now to do that.”
The plunging temperatures also led to water problems, as pipes burst and water treatment plants lost power. Millions of Texans are now under orders to boil water, officials said Wednesday.
The storm has also been blamed for at least 24 deaths, including 11 in Texas, officials said.
Omar Villafranca contributed to the reporting.
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