Millions left in cold — and in the dark
Days of mocking California are over; we deserve answers and action on Texas’ inexcusable failure.
Just before 7 a.m. Tuesday, Mayor Sylvester Turner reported that 1.37 million customers — businesses and households — in the Houston region still had no power. “I know people are angry and frustrated,” he said in a tweet. “So am I.”
Angry and frustrated is not the half of it. Try enraged and fearful.
Across Texas, fully 1 in 3 of the state’s 12 million electricity customers was left in the cold — suffering both from a lack of heat and in some cases water but also from a maddening lack of information from state leadership on what happened, why, and when civilization would be restored.
Our city, the fourth-largest in America, famed as the nation’s energy capital, has been all but brought to its knees by a day of single-digit temps and a light dusting of snow. Millions who live here spent President’s Day without power, or nervously waiting for it to go out, on the coldest day in decades.
On Monday, roads iced over, so as the sun set, and the power outages stretched into the evening, inconvenience turned more dangerous with every passing minute. Houstonians huddling under blankets at home watched with morbid amusement as their breath became visible in the frigid living room air. Parents were powerless to stop their little ones from shivering even under blankets and winter coats. A homeless man in Houston was found dead overnight, and a Houston woman and 8-yearold girl, so desperate for a respite from the cold that they apparently idled their car inside their garage, died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Memorial Hermann reported treating 60 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning at its Texas Medical Center location.
Three of America’s 10 largest cities are in Texas, and all of them have been brought to an eerie, perilous standstill as ice, snow, winds and no power turned the state’s first winter storm of 2021 deadly.
And it’s far from over: “Things are likely to get worse before they get better,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Monday.
Heavy snow is expected in Dallas while Austin and San Antonio are forecasting single-digit temperatures. Freezing rain is expected in Houston and points to the west, raising the specter of ice-laden power lines falling and yet more homes left without power.
But while record cold is settling in across the country — temperatures were 30 degrees below zero in Sioux City, Iowa — Texas was alone in the catastrophic failure of its power grid, which operates independently from other states, and from federal regulation — often a point of pride. Only four states had more than 100,000 customers without power as of Tuesday morning. Among Texas’ neighbors — Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana — a total of about 130,000 customers were out of power Tuesday.
The downside of Texas’ Lone Ranger approach to electricity delivery is, of course, there’s no lifeline during an emergency. When demand exceeds the energy being generated here, Texas can’t just ask another state for help or hook up to another grid with the excess to share.
Instead, we’ve got ERCOT, whose full name takes on a tinge of irony during this bitter calamity, as Gov. Greg Abbott pointed out: “The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours,” he said in a Tuesday release calling the grid’s failure “unacceptable” and deeming the entity’s reform an emergency for this legislative session.
We’re glad when the governor elevates an actual emergency to his list of priorities but Texans shouldn’t fall for any attempts by elected leaders to pass off blame entirely to an obscure entity many have never heard of. It was state and legislative leaders, after all, who helped create the system and continued to boast of its self-reliance even as experts warned of vulnerabilities, including scant accountability and lack of incentives to keep power-generating facilities in working order.
ERCOT is a standalone nonprofit only loosely overseen by the Legislature and the Public Utility Commission, whose members are appointed by Abbott. It issued an order to power companies to cut off large swaths of their customer base in order to prevent the whole grid from going down. These controlled outages are a fail-safe for grid operators in Texas and in other states, but they are supposed to be short-lived and rolling so as to spread the burden around.
This time, the roll came to a screeching halt when Texas’ hemorrhaging energy supply lost the capacity to power it. In many cases, households and businesses that were temporarily taken off line stayed that way, even if some experienced intermittent service.
How did this happen? The energy experts give two answers. The short one: The near-record cold sent demand for energy soaring, rivaling and surpassing the hottest of summers. At the same time, our supply of energy cratered when generators failed to keep up or went offline completely. While early critics pointed to wind turbines icing over in West Texas, by far the biggest shortage was in supplies of natural gas. Always tight during the winter months, when most of the supply is used to heat homes rather than generate electricity, they were squeezed as gas-fired power plants reported that freezing temperatures had reduced their ability to produce power, too. In all, ERCOT officials say one-third of the state’s total energy capacity was sidelined Monday.
The long answer? Neglect. Failure to plan. Thinking it won’t happen here. Not understanding that climate change has made once nearly unimaginable weather events entirely possible. And no shortage of smugness, as when Texas’ U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz openly and pathetically mocked California‘s lack of civilization when its grid was overwhelmed last year. “Hope you don’t like air conditioning!” he tweeted. How embarrassing for all of us.
Yes, the frigid temps were highly unusual for Texas. Not since 1989 had the mercury fallen so low in Houston.
On the other hand, Texas’ power grid has but one real job: To keep people warm in winter and cool in the summer, and to keep businesses operating even during periods of intense weather. It failed on Monday — and with more cold coming Tuesday night, there is no relief in sight.
We urge state officials to spare no amount of energy, influence or statutory authority to restore power to Texas homes and businesses; to demand answers and transparency from ERCOT, utilities and generators; and to diligently pursue legislation that would prevent this from happening again.
Local leaders, we applaud your efforts to protect the homeless and vulnerable with warming centers. We urge you to continue your guidance and frequent updates to help residents prepare, and also to use your influence to encourage energy conservation, especially among large energy consumers.
That means you, owners of extravagantly lit downtown skyscrapers. And yes, that means each of us who is blessed right now to have electricity: set the thermostat to 68 or below, unplug unused devices and remember, that load of laundry can wait.
What cannot wait is relief for the millions of Texans facing the fear and the peril of another sleepless night out in the cold.