One couple in Austin shared how they’re keeping warm in the ‘horrifying’ power outage that knocked out heat for millions in Texas

• Power outages have hit Texas after a massive cold blast knocked out the state’s power grid.
• As of Wednesday nearly 3 million people were still experiencing power outages in Texas.
• One couple called the event “horrifying” as they tried to stay warm in their apartment.
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Millions across Texas are still without power after a massive cold blast knocked out major parts of the state’s power grid.

The winter storm over the long weekend sent freezing temperatures plunging in parts of Texas, and local officials have told some residents they should be prepared to go without power through Wednesday, possibly longer.

At least 20 people in Texas have died from weather-related incidents this week, including two men who officials believed to froze to death, a woman and child who died from carbon monoxide poisoning after using their car to generate heat, and a grandmother and three children who died in a fire they lit after losing power.

And with no end in sight for the power outages, Texans are trying to stay warm by any means necessary.

For one couple in Austin, power has been out for 61 hours.

Rikta Patel, 29, and her boyfriend Connor Crawford, 26, lost power at 2 a.m. on Monday, and used their fireplace to keep warm. By Tuesday, they were running low on wood.

"We have moved our mattress from the bedroom to the living room and built a fort by the fireplace," Patel told Insider in an email.

Millions of Texans experienced power outages because of the storm

As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 3 million people were experiencing power outages in Texas, according to PowerOutage.us, down from the more than 4 million impacted with outages over Monday and Tuesday.

President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency, giving Texas aid for sheltering and mass care, and the Department of Energy issued its own emergency order on Monday allowing Texas power plants to produce more electricity to help with the loss of power.

But the storm exposed issues with Texas' power grid, and revealed it's not particularly prepared for colder weather.

The grid suffered in several ways amid the outages - colder weather meant higher demand for power as Texans used electric furnaces to warm their homes, and power plants simply failed because natural gas resources started to freeze and the state's electricity generators weren't prepared for winter. 

Wind turbines and solar panels, which create a small share of Texas' energy, also seemingly failed when they iced over.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which oversees most of Texas' power grid, said Wednesday that power outages may continue for an unknown amount of time.

Patel said that she and Crawford started preparing for the storm on Saturday after Crawford received an email from the University of Texas at Austin, where he works, saying the college would be closed through at least Thursday.

Ahead of the power outage, the couple charged all of their external batteries to keep their phones and computers charged, filled every jug and vessel they had with water, opened cabinets to keep pipes from freezing, boiled some eggs, and filled up their car with gas.

Temperatures inside homes are still dropping

Crawford said that on the first day of the outage, the temperature in their apartment hovered around 56 degrees Fahrenheit, but by Tuesday night, it had dropped to 43 degrees.

Crawford and Patel checked on neighbors, and said that their condo complex is inviting vulnerable residents to keep warm at a gas fireplace in its clubhouse - the only gas line in the building.

"We were told there'd be rolling blackouts," Patel said. "I figured that they would only shut the power off for a little bit but it would eventually turn back on. Sadly I was wrong. Connor and I have dreamingly made plans for what we would do if the power came back on. Top of my list is a hot shower."

Crawford compared the power outage to a "very cold camping trip."

"Theoretically, as long as one has food and water and enough blankets, you can ride out pretty low temperatures," he said. "Even if we had no wood and the apartment was 30 degrees inside, I feel confident that we could last as long as we had food and water for an indefinite amount of time. We wouldn't be comfortable, but we would for sure survive."

Late Tuesday night they opted to drive to Crawford's parent's house 40 minutes west in Dripping Springs. Their power is out too, but Patel said they now have a gas grill to cook food on.

Elsewhere in Texas, just north of Dallas, a woman who asked to be only identified as Essence out of privacy told Insider that she's been experiencing rolling blackouts since Monday.

She said the outages have been happening in two- to six-hour increments.

"We didn't prepare because we haven't known Texas to get this bad," she said of the storm. "Myself in particular, I'm not from here. It gets bad like this in North Carolina, but I never thought it would be like this in Texas."

She said she's grateful her power hasn't entirely gone out, and that she's been staying under blankets and lighting candles to stay warm.

Others told the Texas Tribune that they have burned their children's toys to stay warm, drove to friends' houses, and sought refuge at shelters.

Several people told The Tribune they were concerned about how the outages were impacting their medical devices, including access to oxygen tanks and the function of dialysis machines.

Governor Abbott called for the main power operator to resign amid the outages

Among officials and Texas residents, there's been finger-pointing in every direction in deciding who's to blame for the power outage.

Some people told the Tribune they blamed the state for its unpreparedness, while politicians have blamed the power operator.

In the days since the outage, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has criticized ERCOT's handling of the event, calling for the organization to resign over its "failures."

"The priority for us now, whatever the future holds, is for us to get the power back on. Obviously this has been a tremendously difficult situation for Texans," ERCOT senior director of system operations Dan Woodfin told reporters on a call Wednesday. "I think the assessment of how we did can be done once we get the power back on. But the initial decision to have outages imposed was a wise decision by the operators here. If we had waited and not reduced demand, we could have drifted toward a blackout - not just outages - and it could take months or longer to rebuild that."

Crawford, who was born and raised in Austin, told Insider that he expected rolling blackouts during the storm, but he didn't anticipate complete power outages across the state.

Crawford called it "horrifying" that millions of people in Texas were left without heat on one of the coldest days of the year.

He said he understood why the power grid has collapsed, especially when it's near impossible to winterize a power grid within a week's notice, but still criticized the lack of organization amid state leadership.

"Failing to communicate to those without power WHY they have no power and WHAT they are doing to fix it is simply inexcusable," Crawford said. "The fact that I have gathered much more information on the Austin subreddit and Twitter about the storm, power updates, and infrastructure updates is an abysmal failure by the leadership of our State, power company, and ERCOT."