We live in an age of disasters. From a fires burning away the last remnants of wildlife on our earth to a worldwide pandemic, calamity after catastrophe bloat news headlines to the point that we get desensitized. That is, until one hits home, affects our daily life or threatens our family. Only then does the perilous reality we all live in really start to set in.
As a Texan transplant who has acclimated to frigid, brutal Midwestern winters, I have often teased my fellow Texans about their complaints over unseasonable cold or occasional snows. As a once a decade snow storm and unprecedented cold struck two weeks ago, it seemed no different. Much of my family even had fun experiencing the rare snow, sledding, and staying home as the roads iced over. Then things escalated, those family members became stranded in their homes, struggling to stay warm, and running out of food and water in the richest country in the world. The reality of the situation began to set in for all of us, and still nobody on the federal or state level seemed prepared to step in.
Then the power went out. A concerning situation became a disaster that consumed me with constant worry as I clung to my phone, waiting to hear from loved ones who were conserving the last of their phone batteries as they huddled in dark homes for warmth. I offered what little I could in advice on staying warm, covering up windows, de-icing cars and layering up. The entire time, I knew just how insufficient those tips and tricks are when you have no power or heat, when the water is shut off or unsafe to drink without boiling, and without power most homes in Texas cannot use their stoves to boil water or cook their dwindling food supplies.
The Northern or Midwestern ways of winter life cannot save Texans who are freezing and starving. The same winter weather we begrudgingly deal with every year is deadly and devastating for the Lone Star state, because it lack the infrastructure to deal with extreme ice and cold. That’s not to say the infrastructure doesn’t work or is impossible to implement in the South, but it has been neglected for the sake of saving money for statewide energy providers. The unwillingness of utility companies to spend their profits on winterizing equipment or providing service to poorer communities, along with the unwillingness of political leader to hold them accountable, has cost lives.
How Deregulation Turned off the Lights
The state-wide failure of the Texas power grid was a predictable result of a perfect storm of escalating climate crises, utility mismanagement, and systemic deregulation. Despite the GOP rants against frozen windmills, the energy shortfall in Texas stems from a failure of the natural gas systems that provide the majority of power to the state. As the deep freeze set in over the weekend, natural gas lines froze and well pumps lost power, reducing over half of the available power to the state’s electric grid. Unlike windmills and other renewable energy sources, natural gas cannot efficiently store large reserves of energy, so relies on a constant flow of gas from wells to power large metropolitan areas in other parts of the state. When those lines froze and the pumps went down, it was those cities that faced rolling blackouts, followed by large-scale power loss that affected millions, including hospitals, universities, and detention facilities.
Texas is the only state with its own independent power grid, managed by the non-profit agency Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). That independence is enabled by the large reserves of natural gas and oil found in Texas. However, when those wells and lines froze, cutting Texas off from the mass amounts of fuel transported to most cities for real time use, it left the state without reserves or power sources from areas outside of the winter storm emergency.
The failure of natural gas and other fossil fuels, which provides over 90% of Texas’s energy, was entirely foreseeable, but not inevitable. When a winter storm struck Texas in 2011, natural gas lines froze and ERCOT instituted similar rolling blackouts to avoid failure of the entire power grid. A federal report conducted after that storm recommended winterizing energy equipment, from natural gas plants to windmills, in order to avoid the exact crisis Texas finds itself in this winter. However, Texas lawmakers never instituted any regulations that required energy companies to winterize equipment or prepare for extreme weather. Instead, companies took some voluntary measures to winterize, but those fell short of the federal recommendations, and were not enough to withstand the extreme conditions brought on by climate change.
This lack of regulation is systemic in Texas politics, and a direct cause of this crisis. It is the reason that Texas has its own personal power grid run by ERCOT, in order to avoid federal regulations. Texas’ large reserves of natural gas and oil have allowed it to operate a virtually independent power system, though it relied on energy reserves from Mexico during the 2011 winter storm (a favor which Texas governor Abbott refused to return during this crisis). However, that independence allows it to skirt federal regulations that mandate weatherization and other emergency standards that help other states keep the lights on during disaster situations. Unsurprisingly, the legislators who have refused to enforce regulations on natural gas and oil industries, and protect them from costly federal regulations, have received more campaign donations from that industry than any other politicians in the country.
Who Got Left in the Dark
As multi-day power outages spread through Austin, Dallas, Houston and many suburban and rural areas in between, I began hearing more and more concerning news from family and friends. Some were reaching out to friends with power, risking breaking quarantine in order to stay warm. Some were considering spending the night in their car to stay warm and charge their phones. Many were at a complete loss, and more concerned with finding hot food and clean water than staying warm. These were dire, life-threatening concerns I never thought my loved ones would face. Some of my friends are financially stable, able to live comfortably in Austin’s soaring rent-prices, and some have been struggling and out of work for nearly a year. And all of them found themselves unable to access even the basic necessities to stay alive for more than three days.
As I did all I could to help my friends and family find a warm place to go, or get food and water delivered through treacherous road conditions, I could only imagine how bad the situation was for the most vulnerable populations. These are the same communities that are the most devastated, and most overlooked, in every crisis. When the pandemic hit, it was Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities that had the highest infection and mortality rates. It spread like wildfire through prisons and jails without any increase in medical care or available PPE, and the most vulnerable disabled communities were completely forgotten in the discourse that painted a young healthy versus old and at-risk dynamic.
Those most severely affected by the cold, power outages, and water shortage are just as predictable as the crisis and its causes. The predominantly Black and Hispanic communities in Texas have been hit hard by power outages, extreme cold, and water shortages as their neighborhoods consist of older houses and more outdated utility infrastructures. Likewise, Texans with pre-existing medical conditions or disabilities found themselves without access to necessary care, like dialysis treatments, oxygen tanks or other home medical equipment that can mean life or death when the lights go off. As hospitals in Austin lost power and water, medically vulnerable Texans found there was no safe haven in the cold.
As always, the cold weather is most deadly for those struggling with homelessness. Even here in Chicago, where extreme cold is a predictable reality, many homeless people have nowhere to go as warming centers and shelters fill to capacity, and many are left to freeze on the streets. When the winter storm took Texas by surprise the homeless population, which has exploded in metro areas due to the economic downturn from the pandemic and rising housing prices, faced deadly exposure with none of the resources to stay warm. Organizers are now racing to seek out those left in the cold, and stretching their limited resources and putting their own lives at risk to bring them in and get them fed.
Possibly even more overlooked, and certainly more dismissed, are dangerous conditions for the large prison population housed in Texas. By last count, Texas has the highest prison population of any state in the country, with over 150,000 prisoners housed in Texas correctional facilities. About one third of those correctional facilities lost power this week, trapping the incarcerated and staff in the cold with no heat, blankets, and in many cases no running water. Guards and prisoners have reported overflowing toilets that had to wrapped in plastic as the smell consumed whole cells and prison blocks. The prisoners also had no running water and were not allowed hand sanitizer to stay clean in those conditions. While many prisons have backup generators, those generators did not provide heat in most cases. Without power, many prisoners are being given small rations of uncooked meat and bread for meals, or not being fed at all.
While there is outreach such as food drives and warming centers for those suffering outdoors in Texas, the incarcerated people have none of those comforts. They have not been provided so much as extra blankets or jackets. Neither can they huddle together for warmth because they are kept in isolation of their cells as guards deal with staffing shortages. Even those correctional officers are stuck in dangerous conditions, working 16 hour shifts or longer in the extreme cold of drafty, unheated prisons. Even in the predictably hot, triple-digit summers, prisoners are regularly subjected to inhumane conditions of suffering through heat without air conditioning. Each year, dozens of prisoners in Texas die from heat stroke or heat related conditions. The human toll of this winter storm may not be known for weeks or months, if it is ever fully disclosed. But we can sure that for the incarcerated in Texas, no help is coming.
With just the glimpses of suffering, inhumane care, and complete neglect facing incarcerated Texans, it is safe to assume but difficult to confirm that conditions in the many private immigration detention facilities in Texas are even worse. These private facilities, many of which house children and immigrant families seeking asylum, have always lacked accountability or transparency in their history of human rights abuses, some of which were highlighted throughout the Trump administration. But those conditions have not changed, even for families and asylum seekers, despite a Biden administration order that requested ICE only detain “criminal threats.”
The few accounts offered by detainee family members describe similar conditions of overflowing toilets, a lack of water leaving detainees thirsty for days, no access to hygiene, and even retaliation. One detainee in a Louisiana detention facility reports that even though they have power, there is not sufficient heat in the facility. He claims that when detainees complain about the cold, guards retaliate by putting them in freezing isolation tanks or even pointing fans at them to make them colder. As those reports are accompanied by complaints of children falling ill in the cold and exploding rates, it seems immigrant communities may face some of the worse consequences of this crisis.
We will not understand the full scope of this catastrophe for months, possibly not before the next one hits. Some of the worst damage will go ignored because of who it has been damaged. And what will we learn?
Who Stepped Up (And How to Help)
An integral component of this disaster was the state’s response, or lack thereof. State government’s response to widespread blackouts were a mix of muddled communication, throwing political blame around, and a slowed emergency response. The mismanagement of the initial rolling blackouts, meant to ease the burden of energy demand, led to many residents going days without power. That shortage, which is a direct result of legislators and ERCOT failing to plan and prepare for the winter storm, led to a statewide humanitarian crisis.
Once plunged into the dark, many cities and municipalities rushed to establish warming centers and shelters for residents to take refuge from the cold. However, the the Texas Division of Emergency Management failed to properly notify residents of where warming centers would be, how to access them, or even when they might lose power. Local leaders in Austin and Dallas reportedly received no guidance from the state or TDEM about how to respond to the crisis or reach out to residents. And in many cities warming centers had insufficient capacity and no food or water, such as in Dallas where only one warming center with a capacity of 500 people was opened to the public.
Other leaders scoffed at the very idea of helping residents who were freezing to death in their homes. Former Governor Rick Perry claimed hypothermia and starvation were a small price to pay to avoid federal regulation. The mayor of one small town resigned after claiming that the government had no responsibility to help dying residents, or even prevent the crisis in the first place. And Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz was lambasted for attempted to quietly abscond to Cancun, Mexico.
In place of an organized statewide response to millions of residents being stranded in the cold without food or clean water, there was a network of community organizers, mutual groups, and Twitter. While Governor Gregg Abbott suggested residents do a Google search on how to get help, people from all over the country shared tips and resources with Texans on how to stay warm without heat, how to get into frozen cars, and what not to do to avoid fire hazards or carbon monoxide poisoning.
On the ground, the most essential and life-saving aid came from grassroots organizations, mutual aid funds, and local businesses. Three days into the storm FEMA sent shipments of blankets, water, and food to Texas. But many had no way to get necessary resources. It was local volunteers partnering with groups like ATX Free Fridge, Austin winter Storm Relief, Mutual Aid Houston, Feed the People in Dallas, and a slew of other food banks, homeless shelters and mutual aid funds that got food, water and blankets to people while bringing the most vulnerable people to emergency shelters. Many local restaurants also partnered with local organizations to hand out free food and water to Texans throughout the storm.
As impressive and necessary as all of the work these organizations have done to protects Texas may be, it is no stand in for an organized, governmental response. In addition, these organizations can only respond to disasters, while lawmakers and the energy industry have the ability to prevent the next one. Much like the insufficient and lagging support from the government for people and businesses affected by the worldwide pandemic, individuals and charitable groups have stepped in to help fill some part of the large gap left by an absent government.
These crises are not isolated incidents either. This is the second time in a decade that Texas has faced mass power shortages due to cold weather. Along with hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters that have created havoc for the most vulnerable people of Texas, dramatic climate change will one increase and exacerbate these disasters. We must learn from these disasters to know how to respond to, or prevent, the next one. But the response from local and federal legislators show no hope of learning that lesson any time soon. If the state learns nothing, or does nothing, we have learned how to look out for our communities without them.
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