Power Outages Day 4: More outages expected as nearly 20,000 still without – KTAB – BigCountryHomepage.com

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) Its been more than 60 hours since some homes in Abilene have had power as electricity is slowly being restored across Texas.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas says they were able to supply power to 600,000 homes Tuesday night, but 2.7 million households statewide still remain affected by widespread power outages that began during winter weather Sunday.

We know this is hard. We continue to work as quickly and safely as possible to restore power. We gained some MWs overnight but are back to 14,000 MW of load shed; lost east DC-tie imports due to Midwest power emergency. We hope to reduce outages over the course of the day.

Nearly 20,000 of those affected homes are here in Abilene, with many local customers living without power since early Monday morning or even Sunday night.

Abilenes power outages also hit all three of the Citys water treatment plants, causing all customers to lose water around 7:00 p.m. Monday.

Tuesday, City officials said power had been restored to the northeast water plant, in turn restoring water to a large portion of Abilene.

However, customers are asked to be conservative with the water as the system recharges, and once restoration is complete, a boil water notice is in effect.

This means the water must be brought to a rolling boil for two minutes if its going to be used for eating, drinking, teeth brushing, or any other activity that involves ingestion.

Non-consumption related activities, such as showering and hand washing, do no require the water to be boiled.

Customers who have their power restored are asked to be conservative as well.

ATMOS Energy says there is an unprecedented demand for natural gas.

For more information about the ongoing outages, including why its taking so long to restore power and why the blackouts lasted so long, read this explainer article from AEP Texas.

See live maps of the outages from AEP Texas and Oncor.

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Power Outages Day 4: More outages expected as nearly 20,000 still without - KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com