What Happened:
On February 14-16 a massive winter storm by the name of “Uri” hit the states of Texas and Oklahoma. Even though this winter storm may have brought joy in Texan children for a while, it didn’t last long. In the storm around 14-23 people died and millions were left without power. Carbon Monoxide claimed the lives of few people after they turned to dangerous methods of warming their homes. Schools across the state have been cancelled. Cities like Houston, Texas and Oklahoma City have had their lowest temperatures since at least 32 years.
During cold weather, one of our most needed item; electricity can be hard to produce. As of right now 500,000 still struggle without power in Texas. CenterPoint energy claimed that it would all come back by the end of Monday the 15 which never happened. The power outages also made water treatments plants go offline because of the frozen pipes and water pressure.
According to NPR news, Michael Evans, Mayor of Mansfield, Texas, says, “I was talking with a family yesterday, and they just knew these people, the temperature in their home was 32 degrees. So, what they did was they brought the people in, and they all had their masks and gloves on and the individuals in one side of the house while they were on the other side of the house.” My house itself lost power for three and a half days and we had constant rotating outages along with Low Water Power.
Schools have also been affected. FBISD, HISD, and many others have been closed since Monday and will remain closed through Friday the 19. Due to the current Pandemic, many students chose to do remote learning. Remote learning is not possible during power outages.
All of this even led President Biden rejoining the Paris Agreement to fight climate change with other countries/nations. Vedant Patel who is a secretary at the White House says that building an infrastructure that does well against such weather is good for the economy.
What Caused It:
So what caused it? What caused the power outages? What caused the pipes to burst? According to KHOU11 news, the lack of winterizing generators led to blackouts. Winterizing isn’t mandatory by state law. ERCOT which is a corporation that stands for Electric Reliability Council of Texas provides steps on how to prepare your generators for such weather. Even though it tells you exactly how to do people still hesitate on doing so. “Because it costs money,” Dr. David Tuttle, UT Energy Institute, said.
Another reason might be because of wind power and/or natural gas. The Texas Governor Greg Abbott said it was wind while others might have said natural gas. Well Dionne Searcey on the New York Times says that even though Governor Greg Abbott blamed it on the wind power it wasn’t just the lack of wind power because of the wind turbines freezing that caused the blackouts. According to NBC news it shows that wind power produces a mere 24% Texas energy while natural gas produces 56% of Texas energy. So, the wind energy wasn’t really a big factor in it at all. It was actually the natural gas production being halted. Scientists are still investigating and trying to find out what caused the winter storms, but the scientist do know that the power grids weren’t prepped to handle the weather they did.
What Can we do/Could Have done:
So, what are and were some things we should do/have done?
The Houston Mayor says that boiling water would be better and healthier because of the power outages cutting off water treatment plants. According to Texas Tribune, Mayor Sylvester Turner also posted something on twitter about dripping water by tweeting “Water pressure is very low. Please do not run water to keep pipes from bursting. Turn off water if pipes have burst. Please contact us if you don’t know how to turn off water. Be conservative on water usage today. It is needed for hospitals and fires”.
The city of Houston is turning off power in certain areas for a certain amount of time to conserve energy. The Mayor has advised everyone to change their thermostat and set it at 68 degrees Fahrenheit. You should also close blinds and shades to prevent heat escaping, stop using heavy appliances, and owners and staff of businesses should conserve light and energy. Downtown Houston, a few days ago, was all lit up with buildings using their power and electricity throughout the night.
To avoid Carbon Monoxide Poisoning; use generators outside, don’t run cars inside the house (including the garage), don’t use ovens for heat, and don’t use the fireplace when sleeping. To check out more on carbon monoxide poisoning check out KHOU11 news article about it. Also, to avoid fires, keep watch on the fireplace at all times. If you have an electrical fireplace and are not able to use it due to a power outage, you may have a panel beneath the fireplace. If you do, insert two D batteries to make it work. And as for right now, you should keep a close watch and be prepared.
So what exactly is ERCOT and what could it have done? ERCOT manages the flow of electric power in Texas. ERCOT manages the Texas independent grid that is separate from rest of the nation due to a federal act somewhere in the 1930s. The United States power system is all connected to balance out the energy. But because ERCOT is its own grid it cannot balance out with the rest of the nation. The Texas power grid (ERCOT) is only tied with some parts of the eastern power grid and the power grid in Mexico. However, even though it is tied with the some of the eastern grid and Mexico grid, it isn’t enough to cover and balance the whole state. Now what ERCOT could’ve done is be more prepared for this winter storm. We all knew it was coming. So why didn’t ERCOT prepare for it? The demand of the energy is far more than what they had and thought they needed, 69,000 megawatts. They also thought that the state expected to lose 8,600 MW but, it lost far more than that, about 49,000 more.
The Aftermath:
Everyone was affected by the storm. 12 animals and 32+ people died in the storm in Texas Alone. Millions are still struggling without power. Thousands of students missed class time. Texas which is one of the top leading states in the United States for producing oil couldn’t produce much. Texas makes 40% of United States crude oil. It also produces a quarter of U.S. natural gas production. According to ABC news Texas dropped a devastating 20% between Saturday and Wednesday for U.S. natural gas production. As a result, to save supply for themselves Texas prohibited natural gas from leaving the state. U.S. just now lost one of their biggest natural gas supply. Now with very few supply there was lots of demand. The prices for gas soared. Gasoline prices skyrocketed. But because of the current pandemic, people find less of a need for gasoline thus, less demand. Also, according to ABC a total of 5.2 million barrels of daily oil production was removed by Winter Storm Uri.
Tangerine News 