The unprecedented winter storm has been everything but funny as it continues to wreak havoc on Texas and other places across the US. Normally winter-averse cities have been suffering from freezing cold because the jet stream has changed and ushered Arctic air above the US and Canada borders.
The National Weather Service (NWS) announced that more than 150 million people were under a winter storm warning, winter weather advisory, or ice storm warning in 25 states, from southern Texas to northern Maine. The widespread storm has caused about 11 deaths which were reported in Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana.
The storm also caused a lot of concerning disturbances, leaving Texas and surrounding states in crisis. First, the high demand for electricity in the state has caused the power grid to fail. Rolling blackouts left 4.3 million people in freezing temperatures without electricity.
Rolling blackouts have been imposed in some areas to conserve power for hospitals, police, and fire stations, leaving over 4.3 million people without electricity. In addition, the Sunday storm knocked out almost half of the state's wind power capacity that makes up one of the main sources of the state’s electricity.
On top of that, icy roads caused traffic incidents and people are now advised to avoid traveling as much as they can.
#9 Don't Believe The Republican Liars
Texas’ wind power crisis in Arctic temperatures led some conservatives to blame wind energy for the state’s wind power outage. But in reality, freezing weather posed a problem to other forms of power generation too, like natural gas and coal-fired power plants.
According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, “The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen.” The strain on Texas’ energy system has risen even higher, with Texans using more energy to heat their homes than ever. ERCOT reported that the state reached record winter power consumption on Sunday evening.
Luckily, 20 hours ago, Greg Abbott tweeted some much-needed good news about the snow crisis in Texas. “UPDATE: 400,000 more homes had power restored this morning. Expect more during the day,” he tweeted.
On top of that, Greg Abbott has issued an official statement about an order to investigate ERCOT and its “immediate transparency.” According to the statement, “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."
