Two Million? Five Million? Real Size of U.S. Blackouts a Mystery
- Texas grid operator says at least 2 million customers in dark
- Amount of load shed suggests 5 million may be affected
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It’s not easy putting a number on what is undoubtedly the largest forced blackout in U.S. history.
If you take the Texas power grid operator’s word for it, the rolling outages that have plunged much of the state into darkness amid an unprecedented cold blast have affected at least two million homes and businesses. If you trust a well-known website that scrapes data from 725 utility outage maps nationwide, it’s about 3.3 million in Texas alone, and 3.6 million across four states. But that may not include rolling outages that some power companies aren’t accustomed to reporting.