Texas disaster: Deadly cold leaves millions in dark with no water

Millions of Americans have been left without power and water in Texas, as deadly cold weather sparked “disasters within the disaster” in the country’s energy powerhouse, with authorities blaming each other over a massive failure of energy infrastructure.

Officials warned on Wednesday of historic cold weather, as temperatures dropped and record snow fell on areas not accustomed to the freezing cold.

Twelve million people in Texas -- the country’s second largest state -- either have no drinking water on tap in their homes or have drinking water available only intermittently.

Unusual winter storm also left millions in over 100 counties without electricity this week.

Officials called on residents in the most populous parts of the state to brace for another round of freezing rain and snow, and prepare for energy to not return until the weekend.

With freezing temperatures expected through the weekend, getting the lights back on will be a slow process, officials said.

Energy remains out for 2.7 million households, officials said.

They said that the state has lost 40% of its generating capacity, amid the historic cold.

Hospitals in the state’s largest city, Houston, and elsewhere in Texas have no water, reports said.

At least 37 deaths have been reported since the cold weather arrived last week, according to officials, who said they suspect many more fatalities — but their bodies have not been discovered yet.

Hundreds of thousands of residents of the Texas metropolis of Houston are suffering from both power outages and a loss of water pressure.

“Water pressure is very low,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner tweeted. “Please do not run water to keep pipes from bursting.”

“This is in many ways disasters within the disaster,” said Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County. “The cascading effects are not going to go away.”

Texas city mayor resigns after saying local govt. has no responsibility

Mayor of Colorado City, Tim Boyd, has resigned after saying that “only the strong will survive,” amid the deadly winter storm and the historic blackouts.

The mayor sparked controversy after posting a message on Facebook, saying that it is not the local government's responsibility to support residents.

"No one owes you are (sic) your family anything, nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this," Boyd said.

“Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish (sic)," he said in the since-deleted post.

“We need to better realize how vulnerable our energy systems are,” said Daniel Cohan, associate professor at Rice University.

“This is going to take some regrouping and there’s not going to be a single step. We’re going to need a portfolio of steps.” he added.

The historic cold forced many people to choose between staying in dark and cold homes, or face COVID-19 exposure at local relief centers.

Finger-pointing as Texas shivers in dark

Widespread blackouts and bone chilling cold that left millions of Texans to shiver in the dark sparked a fury among residents and politicians amid a massive failure of the energy infrastructure.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott called for the top executives of the state’s electrical grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to resign.

Texas snow storm leaves millions without power

A rare deep freeze in Texas that raised demand for power forced the US state

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, however, blamed Abbot for the crisis, saying that he is “responsible.”

“He’s the man at the top,” Miller said, adding that several of the grid board members live out of state.

“One of them lives in Germany. How can you manage the grid in Texas if you’re not even here? C’mon,” he said. “Somebody’s head needs to roll.”

Bill Magness, chief executive of ERCOT said that the planned outages prevented potentially catastrophic damage that “could take months or longer to rebuild” the power network.

ERCOT is responsible for 90% of the state’s electricity.

Abbot demanded an investigation into the management of the power grid.

Abbott and other state officials used the widespread power outages to slam calls for greater use of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, across the United States.

“The situation we find ourselves in Texas right now (is) with having to allow renewable energy priority on our grid,” oil and gas regulator Jim Wright said in an interview. That priority deters power producers which burn natural gas from building new plants in the state, he said.

Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer, however, said two-thirds of the electric power that was lost during the cold was due to a lack of natural gas supplies, and one-third came from wind turbine shut-downs.

Power plant operators could have negotiated gas-supply contracts with extra reserves to maintain operations during extreme weather, he said, but that would have raised their costs.

“We’ll have to seriously consider regulating in the public interest to get out of this mess in the long term,” Blackburn said. “We have allowed money and greed to dictate our approach to public power in Texas.”

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