Things are surreal here in Texas right now. From Dallas to San Antonio, century-old low temperature records were shattered almost every day this week. The state is blanketed in snow and ice, and the power grid has failed.

What began Sunday morning as an exciting novelty — six inches of snow in Central Texas — has devolved over the week into something more sinister. Four million Texans are now without power, many of them unable to drive on roads covered in ice and made impassable by snowfall.

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Texas was “seconds and minutes” away from catastrophic months long blackouts, officials say

The worst case scenario: Demand for power overwhelms the supply of power generation available on the grid, causing equipment to catch fire, substations to blow and power lines to go down.

If the grid had gone totally offline, the physical damage to power infrastructure from overwhelming the grid can take months to repair, said Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president of power and renewables at Enverus, an oil and gas software and information company headquartered in Austin.