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Anger mounts in southeast Texas as crippling power outages and heat turn deadly

Frustrations are mounting across southeast Texas as residents enter a fourth day of crippling power outages and heat, a combination that has proven dangerous – and at times deadly – as some struggle to access food, gas and medical care.

More than 1.3 million homes and businesses across the region are still without power after Beryl slammed into the Gulf Coast as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday, leaving at least 11 people dead across Texas and Louisiana.

Many residents are sheltering with friends or family who still have power, but many can’t afford to leave their homes, Houston City Councilman Julian Ramirez told CNN. And while countless families have lost food in their warming fridges, many stores are still closed, leaving government offices, food banks, and other public services scrambling to distribute food to underserved areas, he said.

lakeeffect ,

I see a lot of people here blaming the TX grid but not all of Texas is under ERCOT.

SE of Houston, power is supplied by Entergy Texas which also supplies power along most of the gulf coast.

Here is a statement from them, “As of 6:30 p.m. Friday, Entergy Texas crews have safely restored electrical power to approximately 199,100 of the 252,460 customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl. We expect all customers who can safely take power to be restored no later than Monday, July 15.”

These are not TX policy decisions causing these outages. It is simply economical decisions that are made throughout the national grid system to make it affordable to deliver the vast quantities of power that people need at a price they can afford. It’s simply a fact of life that when you have such a powerful storm passing through, any human built system is going to fall to the power of mother nature.

I was a electrical engineer back in college, so if anyone has any specific things they want to ask, I’ll try to respond.

I’m not an economist though so I can’t tell you why it’s more important for peoples heating and cooling bills to be closer to $100 a month instead of $300 and why the policy decisions are made to support that. And this is with modest electrical usage setting my AC to cool down to a conservative 78-80 degrees since I’m cheap and want to conserve energy.

AliasAKA ,

As a Texan, the problem is we have 0 below ground lines, we don’t stage workers even when we know storms are coming, we don’t require structures to be built in resilient ways (including solar or wind facilities for new builds) and the end result is that our communities aren’t resilient.

Sure we pay less in taxes (note: if you’re wealthy), but you need a generator and an interlock kit to have the electric uptime other places have. You’re still paying a tax to live here, it’s just not going to the government to give you a nicer community, it’s going to businesses so their execs can get wealthier.

lakeeffect ,

We don’t have 0 below lines. Look at downtown houston. They have below ground lines. Look at recent subdivisions in places like Fannett, TX, they are below ground there.

Are you talking about transmission lines? I’m not sure of any place that runs those below ground.

vaultdweller013 ,

I think they were using hyperbole dude, zero meaning relatively few in relation to whats needed. Its basically the zame as saying fuck all.

AliasAKA ,

I was indeed using hyperbole. Med center also has a lot of ground lines. But the vast majority is unmaintained, extremely aged above ground infrastructure. That might be okay if we didn’t live somewhere that gets hurricanes and other severe events, but we do.

Spacehooks ,

Wow we’ve done nothing and nothing changed

solsangraal ,

they most loyal and obedient slaves are the slaves who think they’re free

Spacehooks ,

Crazy thought but makes sense. Just thinking of Smithers.

Jumpingspiderman ,

Will they get angry enough to do something about the GOPers that are causing the problems? Probably not.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

They’ve been brainwashed into thinking that the GOP is the only solution to their problems and the reason why they never solve the problems is that the enemy is both too strong and too weak.

See point 6: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism

MehBlah ,

But not so angry they are going to do something french about it.

explodicle ,

IIRC revolts are statistically more likely during heat waves.

SkyezOpen ,

Bro if it’s triple digits and humid I’m staying my ass inside. Reschedule the revolt to a mild day in the 70s.

SeattleRain ,

But if we tax rich people to pay for services that’s Communism! Also black people would benefit, is that what you want commie?!

anon_8675309 ,

Keep voting republican!

/s

Yeller_king ,

Vote Republican again, I’m sure they’ll fix it!

S491 ,

This is Houston which consistently votes blue

SeattleRain ,

The governor and both state legislative houses are blood red. Love how MAGA pins all the blame for their policies and any Dem that’s around no matter how lowly.

barsquid ,

I wonder if they’re just pointing out that the victims here are already voting sanely, not trying to assign blame.

Repubs elsewhere in the state, as all Repubs do, treat disasters as something to ignore or cheer, depending on who the victims are. If they were capable of distinguishing between good and bad governance (or capable of empathy at all), they would not be Republicans in the first place.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

Houston controls the statewide power grid?

peopleproblems ,

It’s a bigger economic problem than people are talking about. I have a manager who works from Houston. He can’t work right now. Several other coworkers as well.

At some point, employers will have to consider the liability of employing someone in Texas, simply because a power outage could seriously impact them.

damnthefilibuster ,

So Texas and Florida are out?

peopleproblems ,

Florida rebounds really quick after a hurricane. I do have coworkers in Florida, at most they are out for a day or two.

It’s been 4 so far for Houston. And I’m not talking a hurricane which won’t impact most of the state, I’m talking about any power outage across the state.

protist ,

This is an anecdote that doesn’t hold water if you look search for articles about outages in Florida after hurricanes

damnthefilibuster ,

I meant Florida is out because most housing insurance companies are leaving the state because they’re losing too much money there.

cm0002 ,

Florida, all the craziness aside, is actually part of the national grid and, like the other commenter said, usually rebounds quickly.

Texas OTOH keeps insisting their independent unconnected grid is superior, even though the evidence is stacking quite tall against that claim. If it’s not a hurricane, it’s the heat. If it’s not the heat, it’s the cold. If it’s not the cold, it’s the wind.

It’s always SOMETHING with their grid, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with their insistence that their grid be independent. It’s all the WoKeNESs that’s the problem!!! /s

Z4XC ,

Although being disconnected from the national grid is a problem. This isn’t the problem this time.

This was poor preparation and response by the city and power company. We haven’t had proper tree trimming around power lines and there weren’t repair crews staged for this. Not to mention trees dying off from extreme heat/cold then being blown down.

Fiivemacs ,

A tree shouldn’t be taking the entire grid down…this sounds like regurgitated Facebook bs

protist ,

“A tree” didn’t “take the entire grid down.” A hurricane and thousands of trees took thousands of power lines down, and there are many localized outages interspersed between areas that still have power. “The grid” is fine, individual neighborhoods’ connections to the grid are not.

Madison420 ,

The grid is only fine right now because of decreased load due to outages. When everyone has power again and the load increases they’ll have a different set of problems they’ll end up blaming on FEMA, green energy and hurricanes.

protist ,

That makes no sense. The Texas grid hasn’t had any issues with balancing electricity supply and demand since the winter storm in '21 that took a bunch of generating facilities offline

Madison420 ,

A whole 4 years of stability! I stand corrected that’s a such a long and outstanding record that I should feel shame for doubting or capability after being involved in several deaths then and several more now.

protist ,

No argument from me that what happened in '21 was at least partially avoidable with more effective regulation, but you’re on here talking about this outage in Houston that has absolutely nothing to do with that, because a fucking hurricane knocked down thousands of trees and power lines.

Madison420 ,

Their point was that Texas because it’s unregulated is generally unprepared and have been for most “freak” incidents that were predicted in advance. Sure the hurricane changed paths, they do that so you prepare anyway.

cm0002 ,

This was poor preparation and response by the city and power company.

You don’t say? Maybe if there were some sort of rules to ensure proper procedures are in place AND being followed. Like regulations or something hmmm

Z4XC ,

I agree. I’d fucking love that.

protist ,

People are downvoting every comment that recognizes this has nothing to do with ERCOT. They heard about ERCOT in 2021 and eagerly blame it for every power-related issue in Texas, apparently

Z4XC ,

Yup this is the city and Centerpoint that should be on the hook for this

protist ,

At the same time, let’s recognize this was a hurricane, which would have similarly knocked out power in any metro area, and would’ve taken a few days to fix in any metro area. Centerpoint didn’t pre-stage outside assistance like they should have though, but to their very small credit, Beryl’s track changed dramatically from projections over the final 72 hours before landfall

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

A lot of inertia at the scale of the bulk of the petrochemical industry.

I would not hold my breath. Businesses will simply throw technology at the problem until they can’t see it anymore. Was just in a meeting today where the boss was raving about satellite phones solving our connectivity issues.

SeattleRain ,

Yeah, red states are very poor, mostly due to their backwards economic policies. I know someone is going to being up that Texas is actually rich over all, but they still have far worse wealth disparities and widespread poverty than a comparable state like California. So they are indeed still a very poor state.

This poverty is a huge liability. It’s all fun and games complaining about how the gov wrecks everything until you need something like well regulated utilities.

peopleproblems ,

Poverty is always a liability. In the healthcare system, poverty raises the costs for everyone else when they don’t get things treated or prevented.

What bothers me is that there is a whole bunch of financial types who seem to blissfully ignore liabilities. “Those are unrealized costs,” when it should be “those are ticking time bombs.” If you don’t mitigate liabilities like through well regulated utilities those ticking time bombs will always have bigger consequences when they ARE realized.

Riven ,
@Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

That’s a problem for the next guy once I get my paycheck and leave in 2 years. Repeat ad nauseum.

ImADifferentBird ,
@ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The company I work for has a production and shipping facility down near Houston that has been closed down since Monday due to the lack of power. It’s insane.

protist , (edited )

A lot of sarcasm here, but I fail to see how deregulation or Texas’s separate grid contributed to this problem. I see two main contributing factors:

The storm wasn’t projected to hit Houston this hard. The projected track had it making landfall way down the coast in Corpus Christi just 48 hours before, and the day before that it was projected to hit Brownsville, a solid 350 miles away. Houston was not projected to be the target until the last minute, so many people were caught unprepared, including Centerpoint Energy.

Houston’s tree canopy is massive. Sure, Houston has a ton of concrete and deforestation, but it remains on the edge of the Piney Woods, and especially in north and east Houston many areas are completely blanketed in hundred foot tall loblolly pines and sweetgums that are prone to breakage in hurricane force winds. Power lines were shredded, and many homes were damaged by falling trees

retrospectology , (edited )
@retrospectology@lemmy.world avatar

Except this happens every year, during storms, during heat waves, during cold snaps. If it were just a one-off event it might be able to be waved away, but a pattern of failure is emerging.

Whether the storm was projected to hit as hard or not doesn’t really matter, tropical storms and hurricanes are not some new event in that area of Texas, yet the state and local governments seem utterly unprepared. It was only a year or two ago that basically the exact same thing happened, and apparently nothing was done about it to shore up their services. It’s an inefficiency of the private sector, they’re not capable of providing vital services because their primary motivation is not reliability and efficiency, it’s profit and cost cutting.

You don’t see this happening in other states with the same frequency. I’ve never had the grid where I am fail, and we get both extreme heat and cold and occasional tropical storms.

protist ,

Except this happens every year, during storms, during heat waves, during cold snaps

Does it? We had the snow storm in 2021 that hit the news, but after that, are you lumping every local outage in Texas you see in the news together and blaming the “Texas grid?” People did the same thing when we had a severe ice storm here in Austin in Feb 2023 that knocked out power for several days. Well Austin has a municipal utility because we have not deregulated here, so Austin Energy was responsible for that one, and the problem was ice and trees. People were all over reddit blaming the “Texas grid” at the time, when the issue was ice and trees in a localized area.

Let me be clear I in no way support deregulation. I grew up in Houston when Houston Lighting & Power was our utility, though, and we had outages back then too, because we experience severe weather really often in Houston, and there are a bunch of trees that knock down power lines.

Are you saying you’ve never lost power to your house? I’m curious where you live where there aren’t pretty widespread outages after a hurricane that brings you several hours of 80mph sustained winds. Anyway my entire point was this outage in Houston has nothing to do with the “Texas grid” or deregulation. You could certainly criticize Centerpoint for not being better prepared to repair the outages, but the outages were going to happen regardless

BakerBagel ,

Ercot literally said a month ago that they were planning rolling blackouts in August. Texas can’t handle itself under projected circumstances, so of course they will be fucked every time a disaster hits.

protist ,

ERCOT says that every summer, but also that article says there’s a “12% chance” of rolling blackouts, not that they’re planning them. Last summer was our hottest on record, as it was many places, and there were no rolling blackouts. This summer in Texas hasn’t been nearly as hot as it was last year.

Here are similar articles about pretty much everywhere else:

reuters.com/…/us-midwest-danger-rotating-power-bl…

eenews.net/…/grid-monitor-warns-of-blackout-risks…

www.nytimes.com/2021/02/…/storm-blackouts.html

Again, these outages are due to downed power lines, not ERCOT and not generating capacity. Does everyone here really not understand the difference lmao

Olhonestjim ,

Yes. We understand that the difference is the lack of redundancy in your grid due entirely to profiteering and cost cutting.

protist ,

You’re literally the only person who has had anything productive to say here, so when you say “we,” I’m not sure who you’re referring to. Yes, better grid redundancy would mitigate outages. At the same time, I’d like to see any kind of evidence that Houston has poor grid redundancy compared to any other city of comparable density, or that “profiteering and cost cutting” have played a role.

My previous point stands that ERCOT and the Texas Interconnect being independent has absolutely nothing to do with this

Olhonestjim ,

Except that the only reason your grid is independent is so they can cut corners on quality and soak you for every penny they can. If they were connected to the rest of the country they’d have to conform to superior codes.

protist ,

That’s not “the only reason” though? The Texas grid was created in like the 40s…today’s politics really didn’t apply

Olhonestjim ,

Of course today’s politics apply! Nothing about the 1940s applies to today’s grid. They’ve had 80 years to get your lousy grid up to a modern standard and every year the rest of us have to bail your state out when it inevitably breaks down. They’ve had 80 years to soak you suckers for every last penny they can, but instead of making them fix their hardware and lower prices, you’d rather strut around bragging you could be your own independent country. It doesn’t make y’all look good.

protist ,

Uhhh…what bailouts are you talking about? What have you done for us exactly?

What happened in Houston here was a hurricane knocking down power lines, not a “grid failure.” The complaint is that it’s taking Centerpoint Energy 48-72 hours longer to restore power than they probably could have if they had more effectively prepared.

It should be noted my utility rates (at my municipal utility, owned by the City of Austin) are really reasonable, well below national averages, so I don’t know how you think I’m being “soaked for every last penny.”

lakeeffect ,

Power in TX is about .09/kilowatt hour where as in MI it’s .215 during the summer. This is slightly SE of houston in an area not connected to the ERCOT grid. Power was also out for ~4 days for all the reasons you mentioned.

braxy29 ,

i hear you, fellow texan. no fan of ercot, but reading this thread has been infuriating.

for anyone else reading my comment - some years ago, i lived in oklahoma for a little while. years of drought, one year a lot rain. lots of trees with a lot dead branches weighted by new growth, then that winter an ice storm hit. trees bigger than my car came crashing down and it was all over the town i lived in. for three days in the silence, you could hear branches cracking and falling. two houses down a tree went right through their living room. one end of our street was impassable for several days until someone could cut one tree into small enough pieces to clear it.

needless to say, power was out. parts of town had power back within days, some parts of the state, if i remember correctly, didn’t have power for weeks.

grid stability or redundancy couldn’t have prevented that problem.

www.weather.gov/oun/events-20071208

protist ,

Appreciate you. Outages like this happen all over the country when there are severe weather events, especially hurricanes. Folks on here seem to have a poor grasp of electrical systems and why the power’s out in parts of Houston

SeattleRain ,

You fail to see it because you are a MAGA toadie.

protist ,

wow…

explodicle ,

How exactly do you “see” these factors, are you sure you’re not cognitive dissonancing? Storms change course all the time and those trees have been there for years. Being prepared for the occasional hurricane isn’t profitable.

Diplomjodler3 ,

The cause of the problem is of course gay sex, trans people using bathrooms and a lack of guns and bibles.

Magister ,
@Magister@lemmy.world avatar

As long as bitcoin farms have power, there is no problems

/s

BakerBagel ,

God warned Houston 6 years ago and they didn’t listen.

Diplomjodler3 ,

Filthy sodomites asked for it! Also all the steamy hot gay sex is heating up the atmosphere. Steamy hot gay sex that I never fantasize about!

msage ,

There is a guy, a politician, who said that gay sex releases too much greenhouse gas. Also blew cigar smoke into a plant terrarium calling it ‘necessary CO2 for the plant to live’.

We live in a simulation, and it’s breaking down.

damnthefilibuster ,

Ann Coulter makes for quite the Prophet.

acetanilide ,

My family is currently blaming Obama. So, there’s that.

Diplomjodler3 ,

Ah yes, Obama did climate change. Makes perfect sense.

Cosmicomical ,

Remember this at the next elections, when you will have that incredible urge to not vote or to vote right.

kaitco ,

Don’t worry. They’ll vote for the same folks who allowed this unpreparedness to continue.

Zombiepirate ,
@Zombiepirate@lemmy.world avatar

Republicans in Texas focus their voter suppression efforts on Houston since it is the biggest Democratic voting population in the State.

givesomefucks ,

The Harris County Republican Party criticized CenterPoint in a social media post for its “seemingly lack of preparedness.”

The reason this keeps happening in Texas is republican deregulation though…

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

They can’t keep deregulating if they can’t keep blaming the government. And the more they deregulate, the more that goes wrong, the more they can claim the government wasn’t prepared for.

Texas_Hangover ,

Yes. Hurricanes should definitely be regulated harder.

givesomefucks ,

Texas doesn’t regulate their power grid…

It’s why they can’t connect to the rest of the country’s power grid…

I’d say someone from Texas should know that, but if y’all did you wouldn’t keep voting Republican >

protist , (edited )

Connecting to any of the other interconnects would make absolutely no difference in this case, where the issue is a hurricane knocked down trees and power lines. The Texas grid has functioned just fine every single day since the 2021 ice storm that landed it in the news. What’s happening here is a local outage like would happen in literally any city that experiences a severe weather event

Edit: Lots of downvoting but no one explaining how connecting to another interconnect would make any difference at all here. For context, Hurricane Beryl and Hurricane Sandy made landfall with the same sustained wind velocity. Sandy knocked out power to over 6 million people for days in NY and NJ

girlfreddy ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

sigh

texastribune.org/…/texas-national-power-grids/

austinmonitor.com/…/u-s-rep-greg-casar-files-bill…

texasstandard.org/…/texas-could-be-required-conne…

houstonpublicmedia.org/…/texas-could-connect-to-n…

houstonchronicle.com/…/ferc-texas-minimum-interco…

protist ,

Uh…none of these say anything about how connecting to another interconnect would affect anything about these Houston outages. The Texas grid has been up and running this entire time, the current outages are due to downed power lines in the Houston area

girlfreddy ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

And if Texas demanded interconnections between individual Texan providers Houston might not be facing almost a week-long electical shutdown.

Sharing is caring, buddy.

protist ,

You don’t understand how electrical grids work at all

Texas_Hangover ,

Yeah no shit. But even we can’t stop MASSIVE STORMS from knocking down power lines. It has nothing to do with what grid we’re on.

BakerBagel ,

Funny how other Gulf States don’t have serious power emergencies twice a year. The fact of the matter is that Texas has the least reliable power grid in the country, making them the least prepared for any natural disasters. Which is a problem since Texas is the second most prone state to get a natural disaster.

givesomefucks ,

Do you know what “redundancy” means?

Texas_Hangover ,

Do you? If power lines get knocked down, they’re ain’t gonna be no electricity. What states have “redundancies?”

givesomefucks , (edited )

If power lines get knocked down, they’re ain’t gonna be no electricity

Unless the grid has redundancies…

But like, I’m assuming you didn’t mean to use a double negative there?

I dunno man, I don’t think we’re gonna work this out there seems to be communication issues

ocassionallyaduck ,

If route A is down, route B is used.

This is redundancy.

Texas only has route A.

That is the issue. Power cannot come from anywhere else than route A because there is no connection to the national grid, route B.

This doesn’t prevent last leg localized power outages, but it does prevent the widespread grid wide failures Texas regularly experiences.

But you don’t want to hear this, so go buy a diesel generator instead and enjoy being independent.

Texas_Hangover ,

I already have a generator. And we are literally discussing the last leg here. Our grid is fine.

ocassionallyaduck ,

Lmgdao.

If you think your government forcing regular citizens to buy generators to make sure they aren’t without power is normal, you’re a lost cause.

The Texas grid would be better off it it wasn’t solely reliant on local sources and has redundancy. Your answer to that is to become the redundancy out of your own pocket. Lol

Lightor ,

Our grid is fine? Jesus, bury your head deeper in the sand. There have been multiple reports on the issues with the grid in Texas.

Fosheze ,

Literally every state except for texas. The longest power outage I’ve ever personally seen in my entire life was less than 10 hours and that one only affected a couple city blocks. Most power outages in my area last less than a minute because thats all the time it takes to automatically reroute power around the damaged sections. In any reasonably designed grid large scale power outages that last more than a few moments just don’t happen.

Lightor ,

You’re part of the problem. No matter what breaks down in a Republican system you people do whatever you can to avoid the reality that Republicans are greedy. And their greed hurts you. But sure, let’s blame nature even though no other state has a problem on this scale, this often.

Texas_Hangover ,

Bro, you think Republicans can control the hurricanes and I’M part of the problem? Y’all people delusional.

Lightor ,

Never said that bud, need to read better.

What they can control is the integrity of their grid. No other state has this problem. Plenty of states get hit by hurricanes and none have this massive statewide emergency multiple times a year.

But ya blame the weather, not the people fleecing you as your grid is in shambles.

RememberTheApollo_ , (edited )

Maybe you should try nuking them?

If you KNOW you get massive storms you harden your power grid as much as is feasible to minimize damage. Instead Texas has chosen the path of deregulation in order to maximize profits at acceptable losses. Your loss. Their gain. That’s what happens when the private sector rules.

cm0002 ,

Hmm well Florida seems to do fine with their MASSIVE STORMS, I wonder why?? Hold on, checks notes

Ah, yup, Florida has a decently regulated electric grid (for now anyways) and is connected with the national grid. Imagine that.

Texas_Hangover ,

Wow, I didn’t know Florida was hurricane proof. I’m pretty sure people lose power when the LINES ARE DOWN in Florida as well.

cm0002 ,

The difference is Florida would have been mostly back up by now from a cat 1, probably 12 hours maybe a day max LMAO

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

But even we can’t stop MASSIVE STORMS from knocking down power lines.

We could, because we could stop burning all the fossil fuels that are creating the climate change that is causing all the massive storms.

Think the oil companies in Texas would go for it?

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

It sure would be stupid if Texas wasn’t connected to the national grid because that would make solving this problem a lot slower and a lot more expensive.

Sure would be stupid…

ininewcrow ,
@ininewcrow@lemmy.ca avatar

Don’t, Texas is a mess

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Did they not listen to the litter campaign?

thefartographer ,

Trust me, you don’t want connect your grid to our disease. The infection needs to be cut out first.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You guys do have the wind farms. Fat lot of good it’s done you, but…

Poor (not really, fuck him) T. Boone Pickens. He thought they would power all of Texas after he was gone.

thefartographer ,

Like I said, gotta cut out the infection

You’re admiring our shoes but the foot’s still gangrenous

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