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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Texans Can't Catch a Break

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate Podcasts

Daily News, News, News Commentary

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The power’s back on in Texas, but many residents are still struggling to clean up after a disastrous winter storm. The cold snap knocked out electricity for several days and froze water lines. Some Texans are still without water; others are bailing out flooded homes. But this storm was just the latest in a series of catastrophes to hit Texas in the past several years, leaving the state’s most vulnerable residents in ever more precarious positions. 

Guest: Amal Ahmed, reporter at the Texas Observer. 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:04.0

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0:11.3

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0:16.3

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0:20.1

Go to slate.com slash survey.

0:26.2

How's it gone?

0:32.4

Last week, our producer Davis headed out from his neighborhood Houston, to meet up with a guy named Andrew.

0:39.8

How are y'all? What's going on?

0:41.3

We're just planning out the weekend, trying to get things going, and trying to find plumbers for reasonable prices to do work.

0:48.6

Which, you know, it's a plumber's market right now.

0:52.6

Andrew Barley helps lead an organization called West Street Recovery.

0:56.9

He's helping people repair their homes after a winter storm knocked out power for so many Texans.

1:04.0

When Andrew and Davis met up, it was nearly 80 degrees out, a huge change from a couple weeks back,

1:10.3

when many Texans were shivering under

1:12.5

coats and blankets, waiting out a deep freeze and a utility shut down. But after the cold let up,

1:20.1

what was left behind was a mess of plumbing. Burst pipes, walls sagging, full of leaking water. Andrew says there simply aren't enough hands to do the work.

1:33.3

But additionally, we're at the mercy of like to the market when it comes to supplies right now.

1:37.8

We've had to go all the way as far as Louisiana to get some parts.

1:41.1

But we're also not the only people from Texas with the idea of going out of state to get parts.

1:45.7

So, you know, it's getting back out there too.

...

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