Power Outage in Texas: What to Do Step by Step

It's 9 p.m. on a July Tuesday. The air conditioner cuts off, the refrigerator goes quiet, and every light in the house dies at once. For a few seconds the instinct is to call someone, but who?

In Texas, that question trips up a lot of people, because the state's electricity market works differently from most of the country. Understanding the structure in the first 30 seconds of an outage can shave hours off your wait and keep your family safer through the whole event. This guide walks through exactly what to do, in order.

Texas runs a competitive electricity market overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT). That means two separate companies touch your electricity every month.

Your Retail Electric Provider (REP) is the company you pay the bill to. They price and sell the electricity. Your Transmission and Distribution Utility (TDU) owns and maintains the physical wires, poles, and meters. The four TDUs in Texas's competitive market are Oncor (Dallas-Fort Worth and surrounding areas), CenterPoint Energy (Houston area), AEP Texas (West and South Texas), and Texas-New Mexico Power (TNMP) (select communities across the state).

When the power goes out, the TDU is the one who sends the crew. Your REP has no crews, no trucks, and no ability to restore service. Calling your REP during an outage is not wrong, but they will tell you the same thing: contact your TDU.

Find your TDU from the list below and report the outage directly. Most TDUs have an online outage map, a mobile app, and a phone line that accepts reports even when cell service is spotty.

Oncor: oncor.com or 1-888-313-4747
CenterPoint Energy: centerpointenergy.com or 1-800-332-7143
AEP Texas: aeptexas.com or 1-866-223-8508
TNMP: tnmp.com or 1-888-866-7456

If you are not sure which TDU serves your address, check the top of any recent electricity bill. The TDU name appears in the delivery charge section of your Electricity Facts Label (EFL), the standardized disclosure document every Texas REP is required to provide.

When you report, give your full service address and describe what you observe: whether neighbors are out too, whether you heard a transformer blow, whether a line is down. That detail helps crews prioritize.

Move through this list while you wait for the TDU to respond.

1. Check the breaker panel. A tripped breaker or blown fuse inside the house can mimic a neighborhood outage. Reset tripped breakers before assuming the problem is on the utility side.

2. Look outside. If neighbors have power, the problem is likely between the transformer and your meter, or inside your home. If the whole block is dark, you are dealing with a wider grid event.

3. Unplug or switch off major appliances. When power returns, a surge can damage refrigerators, HVAC systems, and electronics. Leave one light switched on so you know when service is restored, then unplug everything else.

4. Keep the refrigerator and freezer closed. A closed refrigerator holds safe temperatures for roughly four hours. A full freezer can hold for up to 48 hours. Every time the door opens, that window shrinks.

5. Silence the carbon monoxide risk. Never run a generator, grill, camp stove, or gas-powered tool indoors or in an attached garage. Carbon monoxide poisoning kills quickly and silently, and is one of the most common causes of outage-related deaths in Texas.

6. Charge devices while you still can. If you have a battery pack or a vehicle, use them now. Cell service is often the first thing to degrade during a widespread event.

7. Check on neighbors. Elderly neighbors and people who depend on powered medical equipment are at elevated risk within hours during Texas summer heat or a hard freeze.

Food safety is one of the most misunderstood parts of an outage. The general rules from the USDA:

Refrigerator: Foods stay safe for up to four hours if the door stays closed and the refrigerator was at or below 40°F before the outage. After four hours, discard anything perishable, including meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy, and anything with mayo or cream.

Freezer: A full freezer holds temperature for approximately 48 hours. A half-full freezer holds for about 24 hours. Frozen food that still has ice crystals or is at 40°F or below when power returns is generally safe to refreeze or cook immediately. When in doubt, throw it out.

If the outage stretches beyond a few hours in summer heat, a block of dry ice placed in the freezer can extend the window significantly. Call local grocery or hardware stores before you go, since supplies disappear fast during a regional event.

Texas summers and the occasional winter storm can push outages from inconvenient to dangerous. If restoration is not happening within a few hours:

Find a cooling or warming center. During declared emergencies, Texas counties and municipalities open public facilities with climate control. Local emergency management agencies and county websites post locations. The PUCT also maintains information on customer protections during declared weather disasters.

Know the Provider of Last Resort rule. Texas does not have a default utility supply rate, but the PUCT designates a Provider of Last Resort (POLR) for each TDU territory. If your REP were to go out of business during a crisis, the POLR steps in temporarily. This is a backstop mechanism, not a pricing plan, and most customers never encounter it. Your TDU does not change.

Document the damage. If the outage or a related event (a fallen line, a surge) damages your property or appliances, photograph everything before cleanup. Your REP's billing records and the TDU's outage logs can both be relevant to insurance claims.

Stay off downed lines. Treat every downed power line as live. Report it to your TDU immediately and keep at least 30 feet of distance.

Yes, Texas has a process for this. Customers who depend on life-sustaining equipment can register with their TDU as a critical care or chronic condition residential customer. The registration does not guarantee uninterrupted power, but it does put the TDU on notice and may influence restoration priority during a localized outage.

To register, contact your TDU directly. A physician or licensed health care practitioner typically needs to certify the medical need. Your REP may also have information on the process, since they coordinate the certification paperwork in some cases.

If someone in the home depends on electricity-powered medical equipment, do not wait for an outage to register. Complete the process now, and have a backup power plan ready regardless.

Once the lights are back and the refrigerator is humming, many Texans turn to a question they had been ignoring: is my electricity plan still a good deal?

An outage is a natural moment to revisit this. Texas law gives every customer in the competitive market the right to switch REPs, and the state's free shopping tool is Power to Choose, run by the PUCT at powertochoose.org. Every plan listed there includes an EFL, which shows the all-in rate at three usage levels: 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh per month. These tiers matter because some plans look cheap at 1,000 kWh but are far more expensive at 500 kWh.

As of August 2026, the lowest all-in advertised rate in the Oncor (Dallas) territory at 1,000 kWh was around 6.8 cents per kWh, while the median across active plans sat at roughly 15.9 cents per kWh. That spread, more than nine cents per kilowatt-hour, is real money on a Texas summer bill. A household using 1,500 kWh in August at the median rate pays significantly more than one that shopped to the lower end of the market.

You can browse live rates for your TDU territory at ElectricRates.org's Texas page or directly on Power to Choose. Switching is typically straightforward, and Texas rules protect customers from paying ETF penalties in certain situations, though you should check your current contract terms before switching.

Every Texas outage is also a reminder to prepare for the next one. A few investments pay off quickly.

Build an outage kit. Flashlights and extra batteries, a battery-powered or hand-crank radio for emergency alerts, a manual can opener, bottled water (at least one gallon per person per day for three days), and basic first aid supplies.

Know your TDU's outage map. Each TDU publishes an interactive map showing current outages, estimated crew arrival, and restoration estimates. Bookmark it on your phone now, before you need it in the dark.

Consider a backup power source. Portable generators, whole-home standby generators, and battery backup systems (including home battery storage paired with solar) all serve different needs and budgets. If you use a generator, review safe operating procedures carefully before any event occurs.

Sign up for outage alerts. All four Texas TDUs offer text or email notifications. Register your mobile number and address so the TDU can push restoration updates without you having to check the map repeatedly.

Texas electricity rates and plan terms change regularly. Checking ElectricRates.org or Power to Choose once a year, or whenever your contract is up for renewal, keeps you from drifting toward the expensive end of the market without noticing.