Texas’ longest period of rolling blackouts ended around 1:30 this afternoon, eight hours after the power outages began across the state.

The rotating blackouts affected a broad swath of Dallas-Fort Worth starting at 5:30 this morning, snarling commutes and leaving residents in the dark during the area’s coldest weather in 15 years.

The planned outages, which lasted up to 45 minutes, were triggered when more than 50 power plants, including a few owned by Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, stopped working Tuesday night because of the cold weather.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity tripped Tuesday night, leaving the state without enough juice. That’s enough capacity to power about 1.4 million homes. By rotating outages, ERCOT said it prevented total blackouts.

Full Story Here:
ERCOT ends 8 hours of rotating blackouts affecting thousands across Dallas-Fort Worth

When we woke this morning, woke to a rolling electrical BLACKOUT, because it’s *too cold*.

Can you believe that stuff?

Didn’t the eggheads at ERCOT watch the news for the last few days? Don’t they pay attention to the weather forecasts? It’s not like we didn’t have ample warning that this ice storm and intense cold was coming.

Most folks that DID pay attention went to the store and stocked up on staples like milk, bread and so forth. We gassed up our cars and trucks. We prepared in every way we possibly could, but unless every home in Texas happens to have a generator on the back porch, there’s not too much we can do when the power goes out.

Dallas, and Dallas County both want to be the window to the world, a destination, a Super Bowl City, and our energy companies can’t keep the power on. But they will preserve Jerry World, and the NFL experience at ALL costs. They did NOT lose power. They’re exempt.

Jerry World and this NFL debacle sucks up untold amounts of electricity, gotta keep Jerry World warm you know, but hey, *the little people*, the working stiffs that can’t afford to go to Jerry World, oh well, “let them eat cake“.

Incredible.

It’s not like Texans are demanding something for FREE, there is NO entitlement mentality at work here, we PAY dearly for our electric power.

Cuellar said neighborhoods might experience repeated rotating blackouts until the power plants are back online. She said the downtown areas of Dallas and Fort Worth are exempt, as are hospitals, fire stations, police stations and other emergency responders.

That exempts the Dallas Convention Center, the site of the NFL Experience, and City Hall, the location of the Emergency Operations Center for Super Bowl week.

As I said above, Jerry World and the NFL can’t be bothered, lets just freeze the little people.

My big question is; WHY are the power plants in Texas so unprepared for an event like this? You would think that as HOT as it gets here in Texas in the summer, the Texas power grid would be prepared for any eventuality.

Not so it appears.

We have power outages in the summer too, and we get the same lame-assed response from TXU and Oncor then, that we are getting right now, ‘the power system is just overloaded and there’s nothing we can do about it until power demands go down.‘

This is from Ken Paxton, Texas House Republican representative from McKinney, Texas.

Power Emergency Updates - Mid-Afternoon Update

Mid-Afternoon Update: ROTATING OUTAGES DISCONTINUED BUT CONSERVATION STILL NEEDED

ERCOT has issued a notice that rotating outages are no longer needed at this time; however, there is a strong possibility that they will be required again this evening or tomorrow, depending on how quickly the disabled generation units can be returned to service.

Please note that some consumers are still out of power due to the winter storm conditions.

Energy conservation is still critical during peak demand hours this evening between 6 and 10 pm.

We will continue providing these updates when new information is available.

Update regarding rotating power outages

Some of our State Representatives are on the ball and are at least getting messages out to their constituency. Our Mayor Pro Tem here in Rowlett, Mr. Todd Gottel, has also put out the same message. Thank you Todd.

From the original story:

The outages left thousands of homes in darkness starting at 5:30 a.m. and slowed or stopped Dallas Area Rapid Transit trains.

The blackouts left many people angry and frustrated. Cuellar said Oncor’s call center has been overwhelmed with about 60,000 calls an hour.

Ralph Isenberg, managing partner of the Bank Tower at Oak Cliff, said the building had five separate power outages Wednesday morning, ranging in duration from about 15 to 40 minutes.

“Am I saying we’re being picked on? Yes, I am,” he said. “I understand the need for rolling blackouts. But there’s other places in town, and this should be shared.”

I am going to be contacting my Texas House Representative, Joe Driver (TX-113) and I will be asking him WHY we haven’t heard from him directly. And then I want to know what exactly is the Texas House going to do about the way our power services in Texas are allowing the citizens of Texas to suffer because they, the power companies, are not keeping up with demand for electricity. Electricity that we PAY for.

Maybe our officials need to attend the Super Bowl. They could ask the guys from Green Bay how is it they keep electric power in extreme winter conditions. One thing that OUR guys need to consider though, this is extreme for us, but pretty much a normal occurrence for our neighbors to the north.

I think there is something to be learned from them in this instance.