This week’s winter storm system left hundreds of thousands without power, particularly in Central and East Texas, with the epicenter being the state’s capital. The weather resurfaced past pain related to the 2021 winter crisis in Texas and activated questions about how prepared the state is for future events.
Power outages and extreme winter weather seen in Texas last week is evidence that states and cities across the country must rethink weather-related emergency preparations, experts and local officials told the Tribune.
The state’s power grid almost collapsed during the 2021 freeze. Officials said this year’s power outages, in contrast, were due to localized issues such as trees breaking power lines. Still, the storm ultimately caused major disruptions and closures. And for some Texans, it stirred up old memories of previous weather crises.
Much of Texas’ infrastructure isn’t built to withstand cold weather, and local governments historically aren’t prepared for winter weather emergencies, in part due to high costs. But increasingly, southern cities used to handling extreme heat are navigating cold weather, while the opposite is true for northern cities.
“When we talk about adaptation, when we talk about resilience, what it means is that day to day, it costs more money to do that,” said Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. “Now, it saves it in the long run. It saves it both in terms of economic loss as well as lives and livelihoods. But that [cost] is unavoidable.”
Some of the tools that some Texas towns are considering implementing include burying power lines and redeploying emergency response units.
As of Friday at 6:30 p.m., more than 190,000 Texas households remained without power. But the epicenter of power outages this week was in the state’s capital. For some Austinites, this week’s weather saga has brought familiar anxieties to the surface after having endured the deadly 2021 winter storm that blanketed much of the state. Susanna Sharpe, a communications coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin, was without power for more than 20 hours before it was restored. She said she worries issues such as power loss will continue to happen during the winter season.
“It gives me this slight feeling of foreboding that more of this is in our future because of the extremes of temperatures that are increasing,” she said.
Maia Spoto and Emma Williams contributors, Brief Weekly, Texas Tribune.