Tarrant County declares state of disaster as leaders raise questions on power outages
As the record cold continues to maintain an icy grip on Texas, many are starting to ask questions about the power outages around the state.
Gov. Greg Abbott today declared the reform of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) an emergency item this legislative session. In declaring this item an emergency, Abbott called on the legislature to investigate ERCOT, citing the power outages over the past several days.
“The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours,” said Abbott in a news release. “Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes as our state faces freezing temperatures and severe winter weather. This is unacceptable. Reviewing the preparations and decisions by ERCOT is an emergency item so we can get a full picture of what caused this problem and find long-term solutions. I thank my partners in the House and Senate for acting quickly on this challenge, and I will work with them to enhance Texas’ electric grid and ensure that our state never experiences power outages like this again.”
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, on Tuesday called for hearings on the statewide blackouts that have left many electricity customers without power during record-breaking cold weather.
Phelan requested that the House State Affairs and Energy Resources Committees hold a joint hearing to review the factors that led to megawatts of electric generation being dropped off the ERCOT system and the subsequent statewide blackouts that affected millions of Texans across the state.
“The extreme winter weather Texans experienced this week caused the lights to go off across the Lone Star State,” said Phelan in a news release. “I’m asking these two vital committees to convene a joint hearing on February 25th for the express purpose of helping Texans understand what went wrong and how we can prevent these conditions from happening again. We must cut through the finger-pointing and hear directly from stakeholders about the factors that contributed to generation staying down at a time when families needed it most, what our state can do to correct these issues, and what steps regulators and grid operators are taking to safeguard our electric grid.”
“More than 2 million Texans have been left without power – some for many hours, some even days – and this is unacceptable,” said House Energy Resources Committee Chairman Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth. “This joint hearing will provide an opportunity for all Texans to hear from industry officials, regulators, and grid operators to get an explanation and understanding of what went wrong and steps they are all taking to make certain this never happens again. I look forward to working with my House colleagues and committee members to get to the bottom of this critical issue for all Texans.”
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Federal regulators on Tuesday said they are launching an “inquiry” into the operations of the bulk-power system during the severe winter storm that left millions without power in subfreezing temperatures in Texas and other states.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation announced the inquiry.
Officials said the immediate emphasis will remain on restoring power to customers and securing the reliability of the bulk-power system, but they will work with other federal agencies, states, regional entities and utilities to identify problems with the performance of the bulk-power system and identify solutions. FERC oversees interstate electricity transmission while NERC oversees reliability standards for the continental U.S., Canada parts of Mexico.
Also on Tuesday morning, Tarrant County declared a state of disaster as thousands of residents and businesses have been without power.
In a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said: “Due to the winter storm that impacted Tarrant County beginning on February 12, 2021 with ice, snow, and below freezing temperatures, Tarrant County has experienced impassible roads, transportation accidents, damage to critical infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and numerous closures that impacted our citizens, businesses, and economy with a severe impact on jobs, production, and revenue. The storm has impacted public utilities leaving thousands without power in Tarrant County. County, State and U.S. highways throughout the County remain impassible due to the accumulation of ice and snow.”
Businesses have been impacted by the storm as well. Bell Fort Worth area facilities remained closed on Tuesday due to the storm.
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Emergency services provider MedStar reported a record number of emergency calls. There were 570 total on-scene ambulance responses, breaking the record set during the Super Bowl week weather problems in February 2011, which saw 561 on-scene responses. There were 44 hypothermia calls and 27 of those were transported for care. There were 82 power-related responses by MedStar. There were 5 responses with 9 patients treated for possible carbon m onoxide poisoning.
There were outages around the country, but the worst were in Texas, affecting more than 4 million homes and businesses Tuesday. More than 250,000 people also lost power across parts of Appalachia, and another quarter-million were still without electricity following an ice storm in northwest Oregon, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility outage reports. Another 4 million people lost power in Mexico.
The outages forced a Texas county to scramble to get more than 8,000 doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine into arms. The Harris County Public Health facility lost power after 1 a.m. on Monday and its backup generator also failed, said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.
