Express-News takes top prize for coverage of freeze

The Express-News has won first-place honors in the Best of the West journalism contest for its coverage of Winter Storm Uri, which left millions of Texans without power, heat and water for days.

The paper’s winning entry in the project reporting category explored the reasons for the February 2021 grid collapse and showed how failures of official oversight made the storm’s effects worse.

Express-News journalists were recognized in two other categories. The paper’s spot news coverage of the February storm won second place in breaking news, and a searchable database of family violence fatalities won second place in informational graphics. Numerous other categories in Best of the West are still being judged.

In awarding the project reporting prize to the Express-News, the judges singled out “Left in the Dark,” a long-form narrative by Brian Chasnoff and Marina Starleaf Riker that reconstructed the first days of the freeze and revealed how miscommunication between utilities and government officials hindered recovery efforts.

“The writing and tone never failed to move me gracefully and effortlessly through a morass of what did and did not happen after that storm,” a judge wrote. “That it was turned so swiftly and spoke so clearly to those in the throes of distress is its crowning achievement. Stupendous reporting, beautifully told.”

The winning entry was made up of articles by six different reporters, all published within two weeks of the onset of the crisis.

A story by Joshua Fechter revealed that the San Antonio Water System had decided years earlier not to buy backup generators for its pumping stations, rejecting a consultant’s recommendation.

Lauren Caruba showed how power failures left thousands of dialysis patients cut off from lifesaving treatments, Andres Picon documented “two nights of terror” endured by elderly residents of a cold, darkened public housing complex and Statehouse reporter Jeremy Blackman described Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to blame the disaster on green energy.

The Express-News was awarded second place in breaking news for seven articles documenting the storm’s immediate effects. All were published on a single day: Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021.

They described panic-shopping at supermarkets, overflowing homeless shelters and the first signs of what became a widespread water system failure. “As a community struggled and suffered, this coverage hit every angle,” the category judge wrote. “It was comprehensive and useful, skillfully reported and written.”

The contributing reporters were Danya Perez, Laura Garcia, Sig Christenson, Emilie Eaton, Diego Mendoza-Moyers and Cayla J. Harris, as well as Chasnoff, Blackman, Riker, Caruba and Picon. Some of the reporters worked while sitting bundled up in their cars, often the only source of power for phones and laptops. A few had to interrupt their reporting to drive around the city searching for bottled water and firewood.

The Express-News database on family violence fatalities was produced by Eaton and graphics reporter Ryan Serpico. It is the most comprehensive record of family violence deaths ever assembled for Bexar County, with details on 207 fatalities from 2014 through 2020.

Jerry Lara / Staff reporter Brandy Robinson, 36, and her family take refuge at the Best Western Hotel off Loop 410 during last year’s Winter Storm Uri, which knocked out power, heat and water for millions of Texans.