As if being shut down due to the ongoing global pandemic didn’t prove to be tumultuous enough. The state of Texas has been put in further distress by plummeting record low temperatures and the consequential state-wide power outage that accompanied them. 

Over the course of an entire week, over 4 million Texan households were left in complete darkness. Once warm and safe homes suddenly reduced to nothing more than what felt like dark, cold cells.

On February 11^th 2021, when Texas was expecting severe winter storms, they were also hit unexpectedly by state-wide power outages. While such temperatures were a drastic change from the state’s generally warmer ones, they were in no stretch ‘extreme’ for other, colder, states who see these temperatures as a regular occurrence. 

Perhaps that is why the largest and second most populated state in the USA was so vulnerable under these specific circumstances. Not only are Texans as a general population simply not used to this colder weather, but on a grander scale, the state is far from properly equipped for it. This being due to the fact that in order to avoid having to follow certain governmental regulations, Texas has its very own power grid – one completely isolated from the two that divide the rest of the country. Because of this, the state is left to its own devices in instances like these. Instances where, privatised companies (in this case The Electric Reliability Council of Texas or ERCOT), are held under no real obligation to be well equipped for emergency situations as it might dig into their costs.

Households all over the state were told not to go out because of icy roads, but the lack of access to warm meals only resulted in heavily trafficked pitch-black streets as people swarmed to the few restaurants that still had power or to stores in order to stock up on essentials. 

For those who did stay home in order to avoid the crowded icy roads, even ordering out for food was difficult. With some apps flat out refusing to offer their service at the time and others being overcrowded, the once quick and easy solution became an unreliable, hectic mess. While these were the biggest problems for some people, others had completely no access to even that, instead being forced to seek food and refuge through local organisations.

While the week’s events encouraged former and current house representatives, Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, to raise over $4.5 million in relief funds for Texas.

Texas’ own senator Ted Cruz, instead opted to escape to Cancun, Mexico, on holiday with his family. Some politicians even argued that there shouldn’t be any “handouts” given to the affected Texans and that they should instead fend for themselves without expecting government assistance in times like these. 

To later add further insult to injury, Texans who’d just faced almost a full week with no power were later faced with skyrocketing electric bills, some going as high as $16k. Electric companies claimed this was an attempt at making up for any profit lost during the shutdown.