By Tim McLaughlin and Arathy Somasekhar BOSTON/HOUSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Power plant outages surged along the eastern United States on Sunday as constricted natural gas supplies and frigid temperatures cut the electricity output of the region's generation fleet.

In more recent winter weather events, ERCOT has reminded Texans that outages are likely localized and caused by things like fallen tree branches, rather than the amount of electricity available in the power grid. As of about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, the power grid was operating under normal conditions, with enough power to meet current demand.

Many Texans are having flashbacks to the deadly winter freeze that crippled the state's isolated power grid nearly five years ago.

It started like a typical North Texas “bundle up” forecast and turned into a statewide emergency that Texans will be measuring winters against for decades.