You shivered. You boiled water. You hardly slept. And when you finally went to your makeshift bed using every blanket you could find you worried that you might not wake up in the morning.
Sadly, some of our fellow Texans didn’t wake up. Others got sick. Many lived through that nightmare week only to find themselves with homes so damaged that they were largely uninhabitable due to the torrent of water coming from broken pipes. Household goods and clothing ruined, businesses disrupted, lives forever changed.
But it didn’t have to be this way.
The weather forecasters were telling us way before February 14: This storm is going to be one for the ages. Stock up on groceries, stay off the roads, wrap your outside pipes and keep your heat at 67 degrees to conserve energy. Our energy providers and ERCOT, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (the group that manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers) knew that a cold snow storm was on the way ~ and yet they failed to prepare and protect us.
It’s almost unimaginable – except we lived it too. And now we know that it could have even been worse! In fact, the entire state was less than 5 minutes away from a total breakdown of the power grid. Let that sink in.
