Thousands of North Texans woke up without power Saturday morning as the region braces for what meteorologists are warning could be a days-long deep freeze. The winter storm has already knocked out electricity to approximately 3,500 Oncor customers across seven counties as of 7:48 a.m., with Dallas County bearing the brunt of the outages.
An Ice Storm Warning blankets parts of North Texas through Sunday noon, while a broader Winter Storm Warning extends across North and Central Texas for the same period. Perhaps most concerning for residents still haunted by memories of 2021’s catastrophic grid failure: an Extreme Cold Warning will be in effect from Saturday evening through Monday morning, with temperatures potentially remaining below freezing until Tuesday afternoon.
Power Grid Preparations
ERCOT officials have moved quickly to reassure Texans that the state’s power grid is prepared for the surge in demand. “We have well over 90,000 megawatts of capacity to be able to serve demand,” ERCOT President Pablo Vegas stated. “We’re not anticipating any shortfalls in power.”
The grid operator has issued a weather watch from Saturday to Tuesday due to the expected combination of higher electrical demand and potentially lower reserves, but maintains the grid should operate normally throughout the event.
“At this time, we are not anticipating any reliability concerns on the statewide electric grid as a result of this weather event,” ERCOT CEO Pablo Vargas confirmed on Thursday.
Local Impact and Concerns
The current outages, while significant, remain relatively contained compared to worst-case scenarios. Dallas County currently has the highest number of affected customers at 1,614, followed by Tarrant County with 1,011, and Johnson County reporting 886 customers without power. Smaller impacts have been recorded in Grayson, Ellis, Collin and Denton counties.
But what happens if ice continues to accumulate on power lines and equipment? That’s when the situation could deteriorate rapidly, according to utility experts.
“In a worst-case scenario with ice loading, you’ll get a domino effect with poles,” warned Chester Brown, an operations director for Xcel Energy in Amarillo. “One finally gives up and breaks, and then you’ll have a whole string of poles that could break it at a certain time.”
Dallas’s emergency management officials say they’re prepared to assist residents who lose power during the freeze. “We’re ready to move resources and people and activate those sites and then provide transportation, if we need to, to affected residents so that they can have a safe place to go to,” said Kevin Oden, Dallas’s Director of Emergency Management.
The storm’s timing – hitting on a weekend when many Texans are home rather than at work or school – may help reduce travel risks, but it also means residential power consumption could remain high throughout the event.
For now, Texans are settling in for what could be a long, cold weekend – stocking up on groceries, checking batteries, and hoping the reassurances from ERCOT hold true as the mercury continues to drop across the Lone Star State.
