Texas is Freezing. People are Stepping Up to Help.

Article

Feb 16

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I live in Texas, where cold weather has pummeled the state for days. Last week, six people died after a 133-vehicle pileup on a stretch of icy highway in the northern part of the state. In the last two days, millions of people have had to confront sporadic or complete blackouts, their homes chilling as temperatures reach the negatives. And statewide, unhoused people are left to seek crowded shelters and warming centers, which are often inaccessible in the ice and snow, or risk sleeping outside. So far, two people have died.

In lieu of adequate structural support, mutual aid groups, churches and other organizations have stepped in to help unhoused people find shelter in hotels and other facilities, and help people without electricity stay warm. The state is asking people with electricity, myself included, to do our part by decreasing the burden on Texas’ failed energy grid. In some areas where the blackouts have hit water treatment plants, local governments are asking people to forgo bathing.

We’re all in this together, we’ve been told, and it gives me hope to see organizers and community members stepping up to help more vulnerable people. But Texans shouldn’t have to be the ones to pay the price for this institutional failure, which stems from the state’s refusal to share the federal government’s power grid, and their deregulated system. State leaders are slowly starting to take responsibility for what’s happening – Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has gone from alleging that the Texas power grid wasn’t compromised, to declaring reform of the Texas power grid system as an emergency item for the current legislative session. But how many people must suffer, and for how long, before elected officials realize that these extreme weather crises are here to stay, and that it’s their imperative to not just respond to the crisis, but be on the offensive and lead the way through them? Texans deserve better.