This simple paperwork blunder left Texans cold during the deadly freeze

[Paladin]

This simple paperwork blunder left Texans cold during the deadly freeze

... dozens of natural gas facilities had not filled out a three-page application for outage exemptions before the storm, meaning their facilities lost power at a moment when their fuel was needed most to feed struggling power plants.

...Deepening the puzzle is that the same problem was identified during the state’s last major freeze, in 2011.

...Generators and pipeline owners balked at weatherizing their equipment. Lawmakers and regulators neglected to exercise meaningful oversight of the state’s deregulated power industry, leaving it vulnerable to emergencies. Even power to the grid’s single biggest fuel source, natural gas, wasn’t secured.

[Paladin]

At the height of the “snowpocalypse,” social media teemed with pictures of the power haves and have nots — prompting outrage that vacant downtown office buildings had electricity they didn’t need while average citizens endured teeth-chattering cold or worse.

Former utility regulator Jennifer Hubbs saw those pictures and wondered why her bosses at the Public Utility Commission and her counterparts at the Texas Railroad Commission had not followed through on simple recommendations to keep power flowing to gas suppliers and adopt the emergency procedures she and others proposed years earlier.

“I’m on Twitter and I see a photo of downtown Houston lit up like a freakin’ Christmas tree and all the houses around it dark. It hit me like a physical blow,” she said. “You know, we might have avoided rotating outages entirely if we had just approached it with some sense.”

[puma guy]

No, No! That can't be true. Remember they said the gas lines froze!

[puma guy]

This simple paperwork blunder left Texans cold during the deadly freeze

... dozens of natural gas facilities had not filled out a three-page application for outage exemptions before the storm, meaning their facilities lost power at a moment when their fuel was needed most to feed struggling power plants.

Deepening the puzzle is that the same problem was identified during the state’s last major freeze, in 2011.

...Generators and pipeline owners balked at weatherizing their equipment. Lawmakers and regulators neglected to exercise meaningful oversight of the state’s deregulated power industry, leaving it vulnerable to emergencies. Even power to the grid’s single biggest fuel source, natural gas, wasn’t secured.

Deepening the puzzle is that the same problem was identified during the state’s last major freeze, in 2011.

Some millennial back in 2011 probably said "oh, we'll have to schedule a meeting sometime to discuss that!".

[Paladin]

No, No! That can't be true. Remember they said the gas lines froze!

"...truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

-Winston Churchill