As ice and sleet persist on Texas roadways, a number of crashes were reported across the state.
In Kerrville, a series of accidents on a major highway backed traffic up for miles. Local agencies are advising Texans to stay off roads due to icy conditions.
Texas regulators expected power demand to peak at around 8.a.m. Friday, but there were no reports of widespread outages or major strain on the grid at the time.
On Friday morning, about 20,500 Texans were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, a site that aggregates power outage data from utility companies. That means 99.9% of Texas customers have power. The power outages were concentrated in Hunt County, where 10.4% of customers tracked do not have electricity.
Electricity demand on Friday morning was at over 68,0000 megawatts, just shy of the 69,000 megawatts of demands in February 2021 when the grid failed. But the CEO of Texas’ power grid operator told the Texas Tribune on Wednesday the state has a larger cushion of power than last year.
As the state continues to see freezing temperatures, hundreds of flights have been canceled, with the majority of cancellations out of the Dallas-Fort Worth International airport. Many schools and universities have also extended closures through Friday.
By Sneha Dey with Texas Tribune.
