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Cold snap leaves 5 million in Texas, Mexico without power
![Cold snap leaves 5 million in Texas, Mexico without power]()
Cold snap leaves 5 million in Texas, Mexico without power
A rare deep freeze in Texas that raised demand for power forced the U.S. state’s electric grid operator on Monday to impose rotating blackouts that left nearly 3 million customers without electricity.
The cold snap sweeping Texas reached the northern part of neighboring Mexico as well, where authorities said 4.7 million users lost power early on Monday. Around midday, service had been restored to almost 2.6 million of them.
The PowerOutage.us website, which tracks power outages, said 2,820,764 Texas customers were experiencing outages around 2 p.m. CST (2000 GMT).
President Joe Biden declared an emergency on Monday, unlocking federal assistance to Texas, where temperatures on Monday ranged from 28 to minus 8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 to minus 22 Celsius).
“The Texas power grid has not been compromised. The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote on Twitter on Monday. “They are working to get generation back on line.”
Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport said it would remain closed until at least 1 p.m. CST (1900 GMT) on Tuesday while the city’s Hobby Airport ceased operations until at least noon on Tuesday due to the inclement weather.
