Texas Is Defined By Energy. How Did The State's Power Grid Fail So Massively?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Reporter Mose Buchele of NPR member station KUT in Austin explains why the state's power grid buckled under demand in the storm. And Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia, explains the link between more extreme winter weather and climate change.
Additional reporting in this episode from NPR's Camila Domonoske, who reported on the Texas power grid, Ashley Lopez of KUT, Laura Isensee of Houston Public Media, and Dominic Anthony Walsh of Texas Public Radio.
In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week in Texas, Diana Gomez and her boyfriend had no power to heat up food in their Austin apartment, but they did have some cardboard boxes. |
| 0:09.0 | We had some leftover chili we'd made a few days ago, and my boyfriend has a tiny little fire starter, and so he just went out back and lit a fire using the cardboard we have from all of our Amazon boxes. |
| 0:22.0 | In the Dallas Fort Worth suburb of Mansfield, Mayor Michael Evans has noticed the so-called rolling blackouts, which are supposed to be an intentional way to spread power supply around, don't really seem to be rolling. |
| 0:34.0 | When you've not had power for three and a half days, I mean, and your neighbor, maybe about three blocks from you, their power has not been turned off at all. |
| 0:45.0 | You begin to question whether they are rolling at all. |
| 0:49.0 | In her home near Houston, Tanya Ingram and her family lost power days ago. |
| 0:54.0 | They went to a friend's house to warm up, and then that house lost power too. |
| 0:58.0 | We actually booked a hotel thinking that they had power and we got there, they had no power. |
| 1:04.0 | So it's like we can't even get out of the cold. |
| 1:07.0 | Of course, it could be worse. |
| 1:09.0 | Just buckets, like just standing at the door and just throwing buckets of water outside of my house. |
| 1:15.0 | The woman in Dallas gave the local Fox station a tour of her home, flooded by burst pipes. |
| 1:20.0 | The floors and kitchen will have to be replaced. |
| 1:23.0 | The same thing happened to a domestic violence shelter called the Family Place. |
| 1:27.0 | The Family Place's emergency shelter, housing over 120 women and children who've escaped domestic violence, is also unlivable after the pipes burst yesterday. |
| 1:38.0 | We could see the water was pouring out of the ceilings and the clients were trying to run and get all their clothes. |
| 1:43.0 | It was traumatizing for them. |
| 1:45.0 | Consider this. The question millions of people in Texas have. |
| 1:49.0 | Some in their fourth day without water, power or both. |
| 1:53.0 | Is how could this happen? |
| 1:55.0 | Power plants in Canada worked during the winter because they spend the money to weather life. |
| 2:00.0 | Do we need to spend that money to weather life? There's cost associated with that. |
... |
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