Record Cold forces Rolling blackouts for the state of Texas

[Jared Thompson]

My power has gone out and just came back on they say they are suppose to do them every 15 mins.
Its 14 degrees in DFW atm what a time for blackouts

Here is the story http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/02/02/north-texans-continue-to-be-impacted-by-ice/

 

[Michael Nicolaou]

Same story here in San Antonio. My normal 20 minute commute took a good hour due to traffic signals at major intersections being out. Given the temps for the next two days I would expect this to continue for some time.

 

[J Tyler]

Facilities in Texas are simply not designed or built with 9 degree weather in mind, just like you don't build a plant in Ontario to handle 108 degree heat. Because of this, water pipes froze and burst at many power generating plants causing them to go offline. Also, because of the massive draw on natural gas by homes, that meant there was a severe drop in pressure in the natural gas lines causing natural gas fired electric plants to have trouble and go offline.

The rolling blackouts at my home in the Dallas area were MUCH longer than 15 minutes. They averaged 30 minutes at a time, but when power came back it would only stay on for 5 minutes before dropping again for another 30 minutes. Started at 6am when outside temp was 11 degrees. I've got natural gas heat, but of course you have to have electricity to run the fans to blow the hot air out of the furnace. It is incredible how quickly your house gets cold in that situation!

I used to live in Boston and Philadelphia, so I know cold. BUT, this still sucks.

 

[ChristianTerry]

Houston is doing it too. Not really in my part of Houston, but other places are.

 

[Jason Boggs]

We even had a few here in Amarillo earlier today.

 

[Dan Robinson]

This happened in Denver during the 2006 chaser convention. People were getting stuck in elevators at the hotel, and at least one speaker was running presentation devices off of vehicle power.