Direct aid for residents wasn’t part of legislative response to winter storm

The first day, Melissa Hutchins and her husband burned furniture to keep warm. Friends of theirs burned their children’s toys. A neighbor’s roof caved in.

When the couple lost water because the pipes froze, they went to a hotel.

Three nights and four maxed-out credit cards later, they returned to their Arlington condominium when power was restored to Texans after one of the deadliest and costliest disasters in state history.

“Texas is not prepared for weather like that,” Hutchins said. “We’re not equipped for that at all down here.”

State lawmakers responded to February’s deadly power outages during a winter storm with a few key changes to the state’s power grid that experts said will begin to address some issues exposed by the storm — such as requiring power companies to upgrade plants to withstand more extreme weather and creating a statewide emergency alert system.

But they did not provide direct relief for everyday Texans, many of whom lost jobs or loved ones during the pandemic and then went through yet another emotionally and financially taxing crisis.

The storm caused the deaths of as many as 700 people, according to a Buzzfeed analysis. Insurance costs for property damage alone are about $18 billion, Reuters reported. The total economic damage to the state may be $86 billion to $129 billion, according to the Perryman Group, a Texas economic firm.

Lawmakers approved a bill that will likely increase most Texans’ electricity bills by at least a few dollars each month for possibly the next two decades to bail out the state’s utility and electricity companies. Patricia Zavala, senior policy analyst at Jolt, a Latino progressive advocacy group in Texas, said even a small increase in living costs can put Texans who are “teetering on the edge” into financial jeopardy.

Doug Lewin, an Austinbased energy and climate consultant, said that while the Legislature took positive steps in requiring power companies to prepare for future storms, nothing was done to provide direct assistance to people harmed by the power crisis or to help Texans reduce electricity use to take pres

sure off the power grid during extreme weather.

“There was really no focus at all to address … the millions of Texans struggling to pay their electric bills,” Lewin said.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers acknowledged that they did not do enough this session to aid the people who struggled financially after the winter storm caused medical emergencies, damaged property, spoiled food and sent many Texans’ utility bills soaring.

Hutchins, 37, estimates that the hotel, food, repairs to their condo and lost work cost them $5,000. Her husband, a manager at a food and beverage manufacturer, made an early withdrawal on his retirement account so they could repair broken plumbing to restore their water and fix their dishwasher. All of this, she said, after a year in which her husband was sick with COVID-19 and missed a month of work.

“It’s one thing after another,” Hutchins said. “Like water, we can’t live without water. We have to have electricity.”

Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to call lawmakers back for a special session this year to revive certain bills that died during the regular session. In an interview with the Texas Tribune on Tuesday, Abbott said he would likely support a proposal to aid consumers, but he hasn’t announced whether he would add the issue to lawmakers’ plates in a special session.

“Put me on the side of consumers who suffered through this storm,” Abbott said.

Many companies, particularly rural electric cooperatives, were financially wrecked after the winter storm. Natural gas prices spiked during the storm. Some gas utility companies said their customers’ bills would increase several times the normal amount if the companies had to finance their storm-related debt without state help.

If Abbott signs the bills that were passed into law, the legislation will prevent customers from having to pay huge bills from the storm by allowing companies to seek billions of dollars in state-approved bonds backed by the new charges on customers’ bills.

The Texas Senate added an amendment in the final week of the session to House Bill 4492 that would have allowed the state comptroller to provide one-time bill payment assistance grants of $350 to residential customers. That measure was stripped from the bill in the House, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and some senators called for the proposal to be brought back up during a special session.

“It is only fair and right,” said Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio. “People froze in their homes. A $350 credit is the least we can do.”

The Senate stripped away House proposals to help electric customers, too. An amendment to Senate Bill 3 by Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, would have created a grant program for projects that add backup power generation to water treatment plants, local electric utilities, hospitals, nursing homes and dialysis centers. The amendment was taken out during the two chambers’ negotiations.

“I don’t know if we got any good consumer wins, which is disappointing to think about,” Zwiener said of the session.

Elizabeth Conley / Staff file photo Stephanie Gutierrez looks at damage in her home from pipes that broke during the winter storm.