In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is asking the federal government for a “major disaster declaration.” He says this should help families “with funding to restore damage to their homes.”
For residents struggling through days of blackouts followed by burst pipes and flooding, the clean-up is going to be costly.
In all, more than 4.2 million people went without power and heat when the winter storm triggered massive power outages across the state.
Now, authorities have ordered 7 million people – about a quarter of the state’s population – to boil water before drinking it, after water pressure across the state plummeted and blackouts stalled treatment facilities. A man in Abilene died at a health care facility due to a lack of water pressure making treatment impossible.
Some Texans have been forced to cook atop bonfires in their backyards or even using candles. Others are filling their bathtubs with snow to ensure they have access to clean water.
On Thursday the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which oversees the state’s grid, defended its decision to institute blackouts Monday.
The President of ERCOT explained that the grid was “seconds or minutes [from possible failure] given the amount of generation that was coming off the system.” He insisted that had ERCOT not taken households offline, the demand could have tripped a catastrophic system failure with blackouts that “could have occurred for months.”
In Texas, which seldom sees winter storms this harsh, private operators aren’t required to “winterize” equipment and their facilities were not prepared for this unseasonably cold weather. It’s true that Texas isn’t known for its cold winters, but storms such as this one aren’t without precedent. The state previously experienced severe winter weather events in 2011 and 1989.
Texas, of course, is not alone in suffering through wicked winter weather, though it’s certainly borne the brunt of the storm. In Louisiana and Mississippi, the storm has knocked down power lines, leading to a litany of blackouts. On Monday, the National Weather Service announced that as many as 150 million Americans would be affected by the storm in differing capacities.
As a final blow to suffering Texans: Their power bills are skyrocketing; with demand surging and supply crashing, the wholesale price of energy in Houston alone shot from $22 per megawatt-hour up to $9,000.
Maybe the federal government can help with these bills, too.
