Millions of Texans shivering in arctic cold without power

As a record-breaking winter storm swept across the country on Monday, millions of people in Texas found themselves shaking in the dark.

The Texas Electric Reliability Council, which manages the power grid of 26 million customers, called for blackouts to save energy as arctic weather froze wind turbines, took several power plants offline and made increase the demand for home heating systems.

Blackouts affecting more than 2 million people were initially expected to be brief, lasting 15 to 20 minutes, but many Texans said they lost power for hours.

“The power outage continued and as the night progressed the temperatures started to drop,” Esteban Ramirez, 19, a student from Del Rio, west of San Antonio, told the Mexican border. He snuggled up with his mother and grandparents on a sofa to stay warm after losing power at 2:30 a.m.

At one point, he says, the outside temperature was 6 degrees.

“It was scary,” he says. Power was off except for a few brief surges for most of the day. His pipes froze, cutting off the running water in the house, and the dim light prevented his grandfather from getting his medicine, he said.

“It was the first time I had experienced something like this,” he says. “I was afraid I wouldn’t make it through the night.”

As lights and heaters went out across the state, some Texans rushed to wrap pipes to keep them from bursting. Others have checked on vulnerable friends and relatives to keep them safe as temperatures have dropped to levels rarely seen in this part of the country.

In the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff, Aline McKenzie, 59, a science writer at UT-Southwestern Medical Center, picked up extra straw to keep her six chickens warm in their henhouse while she, his wife and their three cats remained in front of a fireplace. .

She brought a camping stove to her house to cook, she said. “My survival instinct is paying off,” she says.

In Austin, Adria Johnson ate tortilla chips and semi-thawed ravioli from her freezer after losing power – and all ability to heat food – at 2 a.m.

By late afternoon, as she curled up under three blankets in her apartment with her chihuahua, Bluebell, the power still hadn’t returned.

“It’s terribly cold,” she said, adding that the icy roads made it dangerous to take cover with friends. “I thought I could resist, but it’s really freezing cold.”

Johnson was watching reports that warned his power was unlikely to return until Tuesday and angered that the state’s energy providers were not more prepared.

“Once this is completed, I expect an assessment of why we could not predict this would happen,” she said. “Every summer we face several days of over 100 temperatures in a row. Who would have thought that we couldn’t handle a few days of freezing temperatures?”