Image Credit: Rick Madonik/Toronto Star via Getty Images 
Energy companies in Texas left two million residents in a “grave” situation when they were unable to restore power following rotating outages during one of the region’s worst winter snow storms.
With temperatures reaching single digits, many frustrated customers woke up to freezing homes and zero electricity Monday morning due to planned blackouts ordered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
“The planned blackouts did not go as planned. Instead of being rolling blackouts, the outages have lasted hours,” reports KXAN.
Rotating outages are starting!
ERCOT has declared an Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) Level 3. Austin Energy, along with utilities across the state, have been instructed to begin rotating outages because there is not enough power available to keep up with consumer demand. pic.twitter.com/IjvjmZ9wxo— Austin Energy (@austinenergy) February 15, 2021
Reports claim generators required to perform the blackouts froze.
Travis County Judge Andy Brown told KXAN the situation turned into an unmitigated disaster.
“That’s what they did in my neighborhood. And then the power situation was so grave at the state level that they weren’t able to follow through on that plan for some reason and they weren’t able to turn some of the power back on in the way they had anticipated,” Brown said.
According to KXAN, some customers in Austin were left without power for an entire day, with no response from energy companies.
“We were without power for 26 hours yesterday, had it back for 2 hours, off for more than an hour and then back on for overnight,” said north Austin KXAN viewer Stephanie Koller. “The power has now been off since 10am today with zero communication from Austin Energy regarding what the problem(s) is(are) and how long it might possibly take to restore power.”
The issue brought national attention to ERCOT on Twitter, with angry customers sounding off on the unmitigated disaster.
My outage is going on 3+ hours. Ridiculous! You guys said 15-60 minutes. Why the lies?
— Dave Young (@craft1349) February 15, 2021
I’ve lived in Minnesota for my entire 40 years and never had to experience power outages in the winter…. $$$ pic.twitter.com/tszqWUaWZJ
— Brian Licari (@mrfroggish) February 15, 2021
Woke up to no power but I’m relieved the empty movie theater and exterior lighting across the street looks like the Vegas strip.
#oncor #poweroutage #Dallas #ERCOT pic.twitter.com/ZCxaHmBzOm
— A. Mark Kyprios (@AMarkKyp) February 15, 2021
Hey @ERCOT_ISO is this conserving energy? And why are these buildings NOT part of your "rolling" or "rotating" outage plans?!!?
#TexasFreeze #TexasWinterStorm pic.twitter.com/NKmmSInKn2
— K-Twizzle (@caotk) February 15, 2021
“We anticipate we will need to continue these controlled outages for the rest of today and perhaps all day tomorrow,” an ERCOT rep said Monday.
Austin city councilman Gregorio Casar called for a “massive emergency response” on Twitter after getting off a conference call with ERCOT.
7/ We need a massive emergency response in case this persists longer. An early afternoon press event is being planned. The city and county must step up to take care of everyone in this disaster event.
— Gregorio Casar (@GregCasar) February 15, 2021
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he’ll also provide an update on the failing power grid later Monday.
“The Texas power grid has not been compromised,” the governor explained in a follow-up tweet. “The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen.”
“This includes the natural gas & coal generators. They are working to get generation back on line.”
Meanwhile, the Southwest Power Pool which controls energy in 14 other states ranging from Kansas to North Dakota has announced they will also be performing rolling outages due to strain on the power grid from the winter blast.
Despite blaming “global warming,” Yahoo! Finance accurately notes, “The outages underscore how as the globe moves away from fossil fuels into an all-electrified system that relies more and more on renewable energy, the grid becomes more vulnerable too.”
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