Millions of Texans are still living without power despite intensified
efforts to restore the electricity grid, local media reported yesterday.
Some 2.6 million people in Texas are having to make do without power after
Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast last Saturday.
According to officials, only 700,000 of them now have their electricity
again, but the outage, unprecedented in its scale, continues to darken most of
the upper Texas Gulf Coast.
Local energy supplier Center Point Energy reported that 1.6 million
customers, or 69 percent of its customers, were still without power, and
Texas-New Mexico Power Co., which serves communities near the hard-hit
coastline, including Angleton and Texas City, said 65,000 of its customers, or
58 percent, are without electricity.
Restoring power is key to solving other hurricane-related problems, including
gasoline shortages, fresh food supplies, ice and water issues, local officials
said.
