A total of 3,000 households in Pecos County lost power on Monday, Feb. 15 according to Pecos County Emergency Management Coordinator Jessie Dominguez.

The outage was due to historically low temperatures that forced the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to start rotating outages at 1:25 a.m. Monday morning across the state.

Dominguez also noted that local electric companies are not at fault for the outages as the rotating outages were solely decided by ERCOT.

About 10,500 MW of customer load was shed at the highest point. That is enough power to serve approximately two million homes.

Extreme weather conditions caused many generating units – across fuel types – to trip offline and become unavailable.

As of 4 p.m. today, approximately 2,500 MW of load is in the process of being restored – enough power to serve 500,000 households.

"ERCOT and Texas electric companies have been able to restore service to hundreds of thousands of households today, but we know there are many people who are still waiting," said ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness. "It’s also important to remember that severe weather, mainly frigid temperatures, is expected to continue, so we’re not out of the woods."

Controlled outages will likely last throughout the evening and into tomorrow as ERCOT works to restore the electric system to normal operations.

Dominguez noted that the emergency shelter at 401 North Gillis, which has a generator, will be open throughout the night for those without power. The location had a minimal amount of people at approximately 8:30 p.m.