Many, probably most, Texans hadn’t heard of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas until this week. Then a historic winter storm froze up the place and “electric reliability” turned into an unfunny joke for far too many. Their electricity was reliably unavailable.
Well, except in certain well-lit urban downtowns. If you live outside of those, as most Texans do, you were forced to play a grim version of Russian Roulette with your power and water supply — if you could get either. Your water pipes may have frozen and burst, rendering your frigid home uninhabitable. I have friends who are dealing with this and will be dealing with it for a long time after the storm.
Power went out for millions of Texans several days ago and is only now being restored piecemeal. Freezing temperatures won’t even leave central Texas until Friday. Much of the state north of that may stay cold for days yet.
Texans are getting to know the 50-year-old council and are not liking what they’re learning. For one thing, about a third of its members don’t even live in Texas.
A third of the board of directors that operate the state’s electrical grid do not appear to live in Texas, and their performance in wake of widespread outages has led to a Dallas-area lawmaker’s call for change.
Records show the two top office holders of the 15-member board of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), live out-of-state. Three other ERCOT board members also appear to live thousands of miles from Texas.
The thought of some Californian voting on our energy market doesn’t sit well.
This not the first time that Texas has had below freezing for over a week , in the 80’s the temp. was in the teens for a week , suck it up butter-cup . Be prepared idiots. The weather people warned you (or did they?) Oh the drama queens and kings on the weather channel .