Texas power grid was only “4 minutes 37 seconds away from a total collapse.” 

In an emergency board meeting held Wednesday, ERCOT officials said that Last week, the Texas power grid was only “4 minutes 37 seconds away from a total collapse.” Which would have meant a statewide blackout.

Had that happened, Electric Reliability Council of Texas says Texas would have been in the dark for weeks if not longer.

In his opening statement CEO Bill Magness said "This was a devastating event, Power is essential to civilization."

Controlled outages were implemented to prevent a statewide blackout, as the storm was unlike anything Texas has experienced before.  Three-hundred and fifty-six generators were knocked offline during the storm. 

During the meeting, ERCOT officials did share some of the steps it took to prepare. These steps included cancelling transmission maintenance outages and waving COVID-19 restrictions to bring in support staff. 

Govener Abbott stated "The State of Texas will continue to investigate ERCOT and uncover the full picture of what went wrong, and we will ensure that the disastrous events of last week are never repeated."