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Authorities are confident in the Texas power grid this time around.
The winter storm has finally arrived in Texas, resulting in icy roads and high power demands.
AUSTIN, Texas - Millions of Texans woke up Thursday morning to flurries and ice, an unwelcome sight to see, after a deadly winter storm hit in the same month, just last year.
"I am at this moment issuing a proclamation for all counties most heavily affected by the ice storm at this particular time," said Gov. Greg Abbott, (R) Texas.
The governor's proclamation provides a generous amount of resources to the 17 hardest hit counties. He stressed Thursday that the grid right now, is reliable.
"There is plenty of power available at this time, as well as plenty of power expected over the remainder of today and early tomorrow," said Abbott.
The expected peak for power demand is Friday morning, and even then, ERCOT will have an additional 10,000 megawatts on standby, enough to power up 2 million homes.
"We have not seen any of our generators come offline for any cold weather situation which is indication that our weatherization program is working as we hoped," said Brad Jones, ERCOT Interim CEO.
"Unlike last year we will be operating the grid in a much more conservative approach with a bigger margin for safety of reserves and an abundance of caution," said Peter Lake, chairman of the Public Utility Commission.
As of Thursday afternoon, Abbott said 70,000 homes were without power, but this is all due to local provider outages.
"It's important to understand these are localized outages that are not related to system-wide reliability issues," said Lake.
Power may be still up, but freezing temps still threaten pipes. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said so far, no boil water notices were issued. Road conditions, however, remain a threat.
"Heavy rains impacted the effectiveness of pre-treatment in many areas and heavy icing as the governor noted continues to make the roads dangerous," said Marc Williams, executive director, TXDOT.
Williams said 2,500 roadways along and west of I-35 remain covered in ice or snow. This combined with freezing temps lingering, authorities urge Texans to stay home if they can.
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