Let's start with the bare fact: the lowest temperature at our house was 2 degrees. The day before the low was 8. We were ten days (maybe nine) with the temperature not getting above freezing. The last time that happened we lost our striking red-tipped photinia. It will be awhile before we see what bushes survived, but I'm planning to replace the whole lot, and hoping I don't have to.
Our house was better built than the rest of the neighborhood. In one of those good things/bad things situation, our timing coincided with a recession. Very few houses were being built because the interest rate was around 20%. We were contacted (don't remember how he got our name) by a builder who only did expensive homes in Cat Mountain and other exclusive areas. He needed to keep his crews working, and brought his expertise and demands for excellence with him. Only the kitchen pipes are on an outside wall, and then only for a few feet. The interior walls have insulation. The attic has a moisture barrier. The developer of our two streets (added to the larger neighborhood) insisted that all houses have gas, and the gas company insisted that each house must have three gas appliances in order for them to bring in the gas. We have gas heat, water heater, and fireplace. And, I'm guessing here, since our two streets were "add-ons" we were connected to the electrical grid which included the hospital. As a result, we were not subjected to the numbing power outages that affected the rest of the neighborhood.
Truthfully, I never understood how there are so many electrical companies in Texas. If there is an article explaining the whole thing, I might be tempted to read it. In any case, I actually did know that ERCOT managed the electricity for Texas (which I now know is not quite true, but close enough). What I really didn't know was that the grid was a stand-alone grid, operating only in Texas. As such, when there is a power shortage, they can't receive energy from the other two grids. There are three grids in the US, East, West, and Texas. I also just learned that it is a stand-alone because Texans didn't want to follow Federal guidelines. It is so hypocritical that the State doesn't like the Feds telling it what to do, but is insistent that local Texas municipalities must follow whatever the State tells them to do.
I also learned that ERCOT has a history of ignoring history. There were problems back in the 80's with cold, and some problems with the heat recently. But after the freeze in 2011, the Feds issued a paper advising what Texas needed to do to prevent a power failure. Common sense things like winterize the wind turbines and various generators. Because Texas wasn't under Fed regulation, and not wanting to expend money and hurt profits, these suggestions were ignored.
I saw an article indicating five of the fifteen board of governors are not in Texas, and one appears to be in Canada. I really have no problem with that as long as they have expertise in the field. But heads need to roll. Texas leads the nation in wind power. They just need to winterize it. If windmills can operate in Denmark and the Arctic, they can operate here.
It was appalling to me that Governor Abbott in a press conference said that all aspects of the energy sector were responsible for the outage, but when on Fox News he blamed wind and solar. He had to walk that back, but it certainly played to his base.
