Hundreds of thousands of businesses and households across Central and East Texas lost power for much of Wednesday, as utility crews scrambled to fix power lines downed by freezing rain and fallen trees.
At one point, more than half of those affected were served by Austin Energy, which warned customers Wednesday evening that the outages could extend until 6 p.m. Friday. The outages come as residents experience another night of near-freezing temperatures and another day of closed college campuses, public schools and a paused Legislature.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, roads were glazed in ice — refrozen in Wednesday’s frigid temperatures after some of it had melted. Already treacherous driving conditions were expected to worsen with more freezing rain expected through Thursday afternoon.
National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Fano said power outages like the ones seen in Central Texas are a possibility for North Texas heading into Wednesday night and Thursday morning....
