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.
Yes. Hurricanes should definitely be regulated harder.
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 >
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
sigh
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/14/texas-national-power-grids/
https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2024/02/u-s-rep-greg-casar-files-bill-to-connect-texas-grid-to-rest-of-the-country/
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-could-be-required-connect-with-other-states-electric-grids/
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-environment/2022/02/16/419278/texas-could-connect-to-national-power-grids-without-losing-autonomy-former-grid-regulator-says/
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/ferc-texas-minimum-interconnection-standard-18272050.php
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
And if Texas demanded interconnections between individual Texan providers Houston might not be facing almost a week-long electical shutdown.
Sharing is caring, buddy.
You don’t understand how electrical grids work at all
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.
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.
Do you know what “redundancy” means?
Do you? If power lines get knocked down, they’re ain’t gonna be no electricity. What states have “redundancies?”
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.
I already have a generator. And we are literally discussing the last leg here. Our grid is fine.
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
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.
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
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.
Bro, you think Republicans can control the hurricanes and I’M part of the problem? Y’all people delusional.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The difference is Florida would have been mostly back up by now from a cat 1, probably 12 hours maybe a day max LMAO
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?