Despite reforms, energy grid vulnerable to cold
ABILENE, TEXAS » Donna Boatright lives alone now in the modest one-story house where her husband, Benny, froze to death. Each day, she lights a candle by his photograph. Before bed, she tells him good night.
A slim 60-year-old who worked at the inn on a nearby Air Force base and let his beard grow each winter, Benny Boatright died in his bed under layers of blankets, not long after a massive power failure plunged millions of Texans into the bitter cold and darkness in February. “I found him,” Donna Boatright, 73, said. Her own fingers were so frozen she had to be hospitalized.
Benny Boatright was among more than 200 people in Texas who died after the state’s power grid failed during one of the worst winter storms in state history. Homes turned frigid. Water systems stopped running. Emergency workers struggled just to communicate.
The depth of the catastrophe, which left 4.5 million customers without power and caused as much as $130 billion in economic damage, caught elected officials off guard and rattled the confidence of Texans, who questioned how the electricity grid could fail to meet the demands of consumers in the nation’s energy capital.
But 10 months later, the state’s energy grid remains vulnerable, and the ability to keep the lights on is a central political issue in the state. It is a particular weak spot for Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking reelection to a third term next year. His most prominent challenger, Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman and Democratic presidential candidate, has repeatedly attacked Abbott over his handling of the crisis.
Despite an early burst of activity after the storm — state officials fired, a flurry of legislation passed, new rules issued — many of the problems that pushed the Texas electrical grid to the brink of a total collapse still remain, according to interviews with two dozen industry experts, elected leaders and current and former state officials.
Companies that operate the natural gas systems that froze in February, cutting off supply to power plants, have not been required to better prepare their equipment for this winter.
Measures have not been taken to reduce demand for heat, particularly in poorly insulated homes. And the incentives in the Texas market — which has prioritized cheap electricity over reliability — are still largely in place.
Local efforts have also been slow to get off the ground.
Abbott, pointing to new regulations requiring the winterization of power plants and new leadership at the state’s electricity regulator, has struck the same tone of optimism as he did before the power failure.
“Here’s the deal,” Abbott said on Feb. 13, two days before millions lost electricity.
“We do, as a state, have the ability to ensure that we do not run out of power.”
Abbott made a similar promise last month: “I can guarantee the lights will stay on.”
But for the coming winter at least, whether Texans endure another crisis may depend on the vagaries of the weather at a time when climate change has raised average temperatures — parts of the state are expecting record warmth for Christmas — but also made extreme events more common.
Many Texans have reassured themselves that February’s weather was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.
But the type of cold that crippled the grid may be less rare than generally assumed, said Texas state climatologist John NielsenGammon.
He cited several historical precedents, including brutal cold spells in 1989 and 1983, and a freeze in 1899 that formed ice on Galveston Bay.
And perhaps more significantly, the most extreme and unusual temperatures in February actually came after the grid had already failed, he said, meaning a lesser winter cold spell could still cause problems in the future.