Texas Governor Greg Abbott outlined his plans on Wednesday restore power to the millions of residents who have had to go without it amid a brutal and deadly winter storm. As temperatures remain well below freezing, the state has been criticized for widespread power outages that leave many Texans struggling to keep warm.
As of Wednesday morning, nearly 3 million households had no electricity.
Abbott said nearly 40,000 megawatts of power remains offline due to mechanical issues, lack of gas and weather conditions. But he added that 6,000 megawatts – enough to power about 1.2 million households, he said – had been added to the grid as of midnight, and he said thousands more will be added soon.
The governor also announced that he has signed an order that will stop companies from selling natural gas outside the state, and will instead require the fuel to be sold to electricity generators in the state.
“I understand people are upset that this has happened … Let’s turn the power back on,” CEO Bill Magness of ERCOT, the energy company that powers most of Texas, told CBS News.
Texas is the only state that has its own power grid. The grid is not regulated by the federal government 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 inquiry, but defended the utility company’s handling of the crisis.
“I think the fundamental decisions our operators made could very likely have prevented a catastrophic blackout,” said Magness. “Unfortunately, the result of preventing that catastrophic blackout turned out to be a long period of outage, unlike anything we have seen before.”
“It’s a really awful time to be in that situation, especially with the weather we have, but we will get those services back on track,” he added. “We’re going to get those people, get their power on. It’s the first priority now to do it.”
Immersion temperatures have 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 is also responsible for at least 24 deaths, 11 of them in Texas, officials said.
Omar Villafranca contributed to the reporting.