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Entergy Texas has started periodic power outages for its customers across Southeast Texas.

The company is taking this action as directed by its reliability coordinator, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, as a last resort and in order to prevent a more extensive, prolonged power outage that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid.

Crews have taken proactive steps to prepare and protect assets from the extreme cold as well as placed additional power generation into service. Due to bitterly cold temperatures and the winter storm, the demand for electricity has reached an all-time high.

“We apologize for the inconvenience these outages may cause, but we have an unusual situation right now driven by extreme weather conditions. We are working to respond and restore power as soon as it is safely possible,” said Stuart Barrett, vice president of customer service.

“While our crews worked to prepare for this storm, a loss of generation combined with the peak load has caused a strain on the system. As a result, we are short of the power needed to meet our customers’ demands across southeast Texas.”

Depending on conditions, individual customers may experience multiple outages during the day.

MISO is taking action or directing actions to be taken to restore the system to normal operations as quickly as possible and will direct Entergy Texas to stop the periodic outages as soon as the power shortfall no longer threatens the integrity of the rest of the electrical power system.

If customers decide to use a portable generator, use it safely and DO NOT run it in an enclosed space. If connecting to the whole house, do so only if the connection has been installed by a licensed electrician to prevent back feed on to the distribution system.

Customers are encouraged to download our free app for their smartphone at entergy.com/app and sign up for text alerts. Customers can also stay up to date by visiting the Entergy Storm Center website and our View Outages page.