LLast week, Malori Elsner’s family was struggling with power outages at their uninsulated rental home near Houston, Texas, burning cardboard in the fireplace to keep warm during a deadly explosion in the Arctic.
But even as they endured the cold, their electricity bill skyrocketed: Texas ’deregulated grid had gone bad, and Elsner sat there, helpless,“ knowing I’m making money, but I don’t have option because there are eight degrees outside ”.
Then a pipe exploded in the attic. As the water cascaded into the garage, the kitchen, and the dining room, they ran frantically trying to figure out what to do, until Elsner touched a light switch and electricity passed through his arm.
“Right now, I ran out into the backyard and turned the breaker around,” he said. Their home was no longer structurally secure and as they packed their bags to stay with a family member, their roof began to fall.
After the devastating winter weather left jeans shaking in the dark last week, warmer temperatures and open shop windows have restored a certain look of normalcy. But the remnants of the storm could haunt parts of the state for months, or even years, after the catastrophes ended in a veritable humanitarian crisis. Its impact on finances, health and households and the state’s politics and economy will not simply fade now that the hot sun has returned and media spotlight has continued.
The storm, simply put, shocked the state. First came a strong cold, then steep roads and sidewalks caused by ice. And once large areas of Texas lost energy, water, or both, what was originally a natural disaster turned into a technological failure that lasted most of a week.
“They’re telling people to boil water,” said Robert Emery, vice president of safety and professor at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston. “It simply came to our notice then. So what do you do?
The bewildered state emergency management will have far-reaching consequences, from an excessive impact on already disadvantaged communities (often communities of color) to a potential increase in the cost of living. Bitter demands can shatter communities and taxpayers are likely to have to rescue the fossil fuel companies themselves responsible for the network breakdown.
“I suspect it will be very corrosive and disturbing,” said James Elliott, a sociology professor at Rice University. “People will not regain confidence in their institutions very quickly.
“In the long run, maybe it’s good. I hope people stay angry. I’m angry.”
A lethal storm, superimposed on a pandemic
“It’s one thing to be cold,” but “being cold in the dark” is “even more miserable,” Emery said.
As millions of jeans ran out of electricity or drinking water, sometimes for days, they resorted to dangerous solutions such as gas stoves, cars and generators to get heat. Hundreds suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. Others died of presumed hypothermia. Others still died in house fires after lighting the fireplace.
Drivers crashed and crashed amid icy roads and malfunctioning streetlights, while cold-weather shelters filled with displaced people, despite the Covid-19.
“People were already stressed and facing various challenges with the pandemic, and then putting it on has really been a real challenge for all Texas citizens,” Emery said.
Now, residents affected by the lack of plumbers, electricians and other skilled workers in the state are trying to fix their homes alone, threatening “an inevitable series of injuries,” Emery said. And, as the climate becomes more conducive to mold growth, hidden damage from water leaks poses another threat to public health.
There are also possible ramifications on mental health. Families already mourned more than 42,000 jeans killed by Covid-19, and the winter storm caused more suffering, trauma and deaths.
“Resilience is one thing,” Elliott said. “Resistance when things keep happening over and over can leave you without the ability to have hope.”
A success for the Texas economy
Part of what makes Texas so attractive to residents and general executives is its relative affordability, compared to other trendy states like New York and California.
But this month’s winter storm wasn’t an anomaly – extreme weather events are expected to become even more frequent as climate change accelerates and Texas remains incredibly vulnerable. After last week’s calamity, power plants, homes and businesses have no choice but to “hibernate”.
These upgrades will lead to a high price that is likely to be passed on to consumers, raising electricity rates, construction costs and insurance premiums, said Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank.
“It reduces that cost advantage that we’ve benefited from … for a long time,” Orrenius said.
The inability of officials to cope with the crisis could also affect Texas ’economic growth and job creation, even as it is about to become the next Silicon Valley. Large technology companies such as Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have been moving to Texas amid the coronavirus pandemic, partially fueled by lower costs and favorable tax rates.
But after witnessing a total collapse of state infrastructure, corporations that need reliable sources of energy and water to power their operations may rethink making the move, unless they are relieved of some way these concerns, warned Lloyd Potter, Texas state demographer and professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
This subsequent loss of well-paid, highly skilled jobs would be a severe blow to jeans, Potter said, but especially to those with less socioeconomic spectrum.
“In terms of magnitude and severity, [this] it was, you know, more than anything we’ve experienced historically, ”he said. “The incidence of not addressing it would be potentially beautiful, quite strong.”
A disproportionate toll
“You don’t need a rocket scientist,” Elliott said. “Those who have fewer resources to bounce back will suffer more. And this suffering will add more.”
When the power grid failed last week, residents of low-income, disadvantaged communities faced poor insulation, food shortages, and a lack of shared circuits with critical infrastructure that would have kept the lights on.
Now, when the state begins the repairs, the same inequalities will probably influence who gets the much-needed funding and who stays.
“How we recover in the long run from these natural hazards is the real disaster,” Elliott said. “There is the event, but disaster strikes as it occurs.”
While researchers are trying to push for more equity in disaster response, aid has historically been aimed at “who lost more and not who needs it most,” Elliott said: property restoration, not community restoration.
This often exacerbates pre-existing wealth inequalities and, “the more damage there is to a place over time, the more wealth becomes,” Elliott explained.
Even severe storm storms (pipe explosions, hotel bills, etc.) will fall more on jeans that are less able to handle them, as “unexpected out-of-pocket expenses are much more difficult to handle. to people … living payroll to payroll ”. Potter said.
The storm will also exacerbate problems for families who have already lost income due to the recession caused by Covid-19, who are now taking on home repairs and high electricity bills despite their depleted bank accounts.
“This came at a very unfortunate time, when a lot of people were already struggling,” Orrenius said.
Earlier this week, Elsner’s possessions were still sitting in her kitchen, modeling herself, waiting for the owner to do the cleaning so she could make an inventory of an insurance claim.
His family had tried to find a new place to live, but the houses quickly disappeared from the market.
“This last year has just been very hard here,” he said, “with these extraordinary disasters that are constantly occurring and are constantly being eliminated.”
“The city, the state, nobody does anything.”