Record heat leads to power outages in Texas
Conservation urged to avoid more rolling blackouts
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; Posted: 9:55 a.m. EDT (13:55 GMT)
Houston and other Texas cities baked in record high temperatures Monday.
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Manage Alerts | What Is This? HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Faced with the prospect of another day of record heat, the state's power suppliers urged Texans to cut down on their electricity use in the hope of avoiding more rolling blackouts.
Power companies throughout the state imposed the blackouts Monday because of an electricity shortage during unseasonably hot weather.
Thousands of people were caught without electricity for short periods of time as highs reached into the low 100s, and police rushed to direct traffic during the afternoon rush hour.
Highs were expected to reach into the upper 90s on Tuesday before returning to a more normal range in the 70s and 80s on Wednesday.
"We are asking everybody to pitch in and do the best they can by minimizing electric consumption between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., the peak hours," said Paul Wattles, spokesman for Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the state's electricity grid.
As much as 15 percent of the state's power supply was already off line for seasonal maintenance to brace for the summer's energy usage peaks, but four power generating plants also shut down unexpectedly, Wattles said. Officials were pushing to get power flowing again from the generators that had been idled.
ERCOT said operations were back to normal by Monday evening.
The typical usage for Texas in April is about 40,000 megawatts a day, but the state pushed 52,000 megawatts on Monday, Wattles said. The rollouts were limited to the ERCOT grid, which provides electricity to about 80 percent of the state.
A recorded high of 101° at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport broke the previous high of 94°, set in 1913 and matched in 1925, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures reached 107° in Laredo.
