The State of the Aaron (20 Feb 2021)
Here is your update for the morning of Saturday, February 20, 2021.
Programming Note
If everything goes according to plan, this will hopefully be my last update.
✅ Electricity
As of Friday morning, the grid is no longer in emergency operations and has returned to normal. Some folks are still without electricity, but that’s largely due to issues like downed power lines which Austin Energy is historically very adept at resolving.
📈 Heat
It’s expected to get to above 50℉ today and then not dip below 38℉ for the foreseeable future so my HVAC system should be back to normal operational conditions and I can stop using my space heater. Trust that I’ll be reaching out to my HVAC people to discuss preparations for future weather extremes.
🚱 Water
Water and water pressure is about halfway restored and quickly improving, however we’re still being asked to conserve water and are going to be under a boil water notice for at least another few days. I still have water and water pressure, but plenty of folks in Austin still do not.
🤷♂️ Natural Gas
My natural gas company has been radio silent for three days now. There likewise hasn’t been anything in the news.
✅ Food
I’m expecting that this weekend is going to be bonkers at the various supermarkets. I might venture out to replenish milk, water, and juice but we’ll see. I’m currently targeting Monday for a proper grocery run. Hopefully things will have quieted down by then.
✅ Travel
The roads are largely cleared and, once the remainder of the ice clears from last night’s final freeze transportation should be back to 100%.
❌ Work
The university has extended its closure through Wednesday morning.
📷 Photos
This is what it looks like outside my front door as I write this.
As compared with two days ago.
Conclusion
Based on everything I’ve shared above, I’m at the point where the only major concern after noon today is going to be the boil water notice. As such, this will hopefully be my last update.
It’s going to be a mess for a lot of people for a long time. The water damage alone from burst pipes will be astronomical. That’s not to say anything of the cost in terms of human life.
📚 Additional Reading
“I wish there was more of a government effort to do this,” said Lang, a doctor at Dell Children’s Medical Center. “In the meantime, we can take care of each other, and feed each other and try to keep each other warm as best as we can,” he said.
[…]
“We’re expected to keep our thermostats low, we’re expected to conserve water, which we don’t mind doing because we realize we’re part of the community, but where is that wherewithal and that thinking at the leadership level?” she said. “We’re happy to do it but it does feel like we’re expected to carry the weight of this — again.”
Again, Fox said, because even once power has been restored — and hopefully water, too — we all continue to live through an uncontrolled pandemic.
“We’re expected to be teachers and parents and housekeepers and caregivers because our government failed us in responding to this pandemic responsibly,” she said. Fox, who is Black, said she has also had to bear the weight of holding institutions accountable for racial injustice. “It does seem to feel like the citizens are left holding the biggest bag.”
Texas history, and the Texas psyche, go a long way toward explaining how we got here. Our much-touted rugged individualism compelled us to avoid regulation of our power grid by the Federal Power Commission. Texas was so big we could afford to keep to ourselves. The system here was lightly regulated, with myriad small power companies dotting the state, until 1970, when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — yes, ERCOT — was formed under Governor Preston Smith to meet federal guidelines established in the wake of a 1965 winter blackout in the Northeast.
Another boon for individuality, and for higher profit potential, came in the nineties and early aughts, as Texas moved to deregulate its power market under the governorships of George W. Bush and Rick Perry at the urging of, among others, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame. But deregulation was something of a misnomer. As Hirs points out, “All these free-market Texans go into rapture over competition and deregulation, but the fact is the market is still heavily regulated. It’s not deregulated, it’s just regulated differently.”
Texas could have required that providers of electricity, and providers of natural gas and other fuels for their plants, winterize their equipment, as other states have done, so that it doesn’t freeze in frigid weather. The state could also have provided for extra generating capacity, as other states have done, to kick in when demand surges or when some providers crap out in bad weather. But both of those measures would have caused electric rates to rise somewhat in good times, which is unappealing to big electricity consumers (and political contributors) such as refineries, big box stores, grocery stores, skyscrapers, and cloud computing data centers. That’s a big reason why ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission and the Legislature and the governor have declined to make the system more resilient.
