While a brutal winter storm hit much of Texas, Cecilia Corral rummaged through social media posts written by fellow Austinites. From single mothers and newborns, others in her city froze without heat or in desperate need of food.
“Yesterday, I lost count of how many times I cried from what I saw,” said Corral, co-founder and vice president of CareMessage products, a nonprofit and patient involvement platform focused on medically served areas.
Millions of Texans woke up in the cold and darkness on Tuesday, unleashing suffering and death in a state that produces by far the largest electricity in the country, but somehow lost control of its own electricity grid amid a harsh winter. In the middle of the catastrophe, photos of the illuminated city line lines circulated on social networks, provoking outrage and revealing how socioeconomically disadvantaged families and people of color have borne an oversized burden on the part of the robbed leadership of officials.
“It’s not just today. It’s not just this emergency. It’s an emergency, “said Natasha Harper-Madison, Austin’s pro-tem mayor. “These are the kinds of disparities we normally see all the time. They happen to be amplified due to the emergency. ”
As freezing temperatures and snowstorms shocked Texans in recent days, crank thermostats battled tougher operating conditions at power plants. With rising energy demand and declining supply, the Texas Electrical Reliability Council, which manages the flow of electricity for most of the state, has initiated shutdowns to try to cope with about 34,000 megawatts of lost energy.
But critical infrastructure has been spared long-term disruptions, benefiting residents in denser and richer areas who usually host those services and disadvantage forced disadvantaged communities in neighborhoods where these resources are scarce.
In Austin, the state capital, large-scale disruptions have once again highlighted the city’s “racial and economic segregation,” Harper-Madison said.
The images showed downtown Austin – kept online to support heating centers, a local hospital, government buildings, etc. – juxtaposed with the interruptions around him. In Dallas, skyscrapers lit up in festive reds and hot reds for Valentine’s Day this long weekend, frivolously depleting the city’s power, and Houston’s office buildings also shone Monday night as locals shuddered. their homes.
Initially, the power outages were to last a few minutes, but as the power grid deteriorated, they far exceeded these expectations, sometimes for days. “The current situation is not – absolutely non-existent – sustainable. There is no excuse for this, “said Varun Rai, director of the University of Texas Institute of Energy.
As homes and apartments cool, hundreds of Texans use life-threatening methods, such as grills, cars, or heat generators, and become seriously ill with carbon monoxide poisoning, including a woman and a girl who have died. the Houston.
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