Roxanna Miranda/The Rider Photo Illustration
Alejandra Yañez | THE RIDER
From power outages to food shortages at grocery stores, February’s winter storm put a damper on many people’s plans across the Rio Grande Valley and the entire state of Texas.
Criminal justice senior Gabriel Treviño, who lives in Edinburg, said he was without power for three days during the week of Feb. 15, when the state experienced devastating power outages and record-low temperatures.
“One of the days got pretty bad,” he said. “I got really in my head, and I was really anxious.”
Due to the lack of social contact, Treviño said he suffered from anxiety during the outages.
Asked what his greatest challenge was during the experience, Treviño replied that trying not to overthink and keeping his anxiety at a level where he could still function normally was the most difficult part for him.
He said he usually runs to destress but due to the cold, he felt trapped at home.
Treviño said he felt that state officials did not do their part during the outages to take responsibility for the situation.
“I do wish that the people who are in power would have done more,” he said. “We really count on them to take care of us as the leaders that we vote for … but in this case, it was like they were gaslighting us and blaming us for what was going on when, in reality, it was them who didn’t do their part as our leaders to take care of their people.”
Asked if he believes the harsh winter storm was due to global warming, Treviño replied, “Definitely, you can really see the shift happening. If you can remember, years back, that one time that we had snow when we were kids was, like, in 2004, and that was, like, on Christmas. I feel like every year the cold is starting to come later in the winter season, like, in February and March instead of, like, December and January, which is really weird.”
Bethanee Campos, an English senior, told The Rider she experienced the brunt of the storm on Feb. 13 in Houston, where she stayed snowed in an Airbnb with a friend.
Campos said the power went out the same day she arrived in Houston and the pipes froze the day after, leaving her with no water to shower for three days.
“I felt gross and we couldn’t find food anywhere, like at fast food places,” she said. “The two that were open ran out of food within the first couple of hours because just so many people went to get food. Walmarts were closed, so we couldn’t get generators to generate heat.”
When Campos finally arrived back home to McAllen on Feb. 16, she was greeted with another power outage that lasted until the 18.
“The house was smelling because the food started to go bad in the fridge,” she said.
Campos said the biggest challenge for her was driving with ice on the roads and dealing with a lack of food because of the public’s panic buying.
Gerry Flores, a history senior, said the biggest challenge he faced was dealing with the shortage of gasoline, since he commutes regularly from Edinburg to Edcouch and Elsa and, occasionally, to Weslaco.
The history senior said he was babysitting his sister’s kids on Feb. 14 in Edinburg when the power went out and drove them to his other sister’s house in Weslaco, where she, fortunately, had power.
Flores said he was fortunate enough to pump gasoline in Weslaco before the lines got too long.
Asked what his greatest challenge was during the winter storm, he replied, “I was worried about the gas because I usually travel back and forth because my dad had a hernia surgery. So, I told him, ‘I don’t want you outside or anything.’ So, I’m always trying to check up on him. So, the pet peeve was the gas.”
Flores attributes the shortage of gasoline to people panic pumping and the lack of electricity, which prohibits the pumps from working.
Asked what he felt could have been done to make the situation with gas better, he replied that although Gov. Greg Abbott let the public know that a storm was coming, Flores believes no one was prepared for the severity of it.
He said he was bothered that local leaders did not do more to aid their constituents.
“Our local officials didn’t do much,” Flores said. “It had to be people like us, like, normal people trying to help out the community.”
Arlett Lomeli, a UTRGV sociology professor, expressed her pride in the Rio Grande Valley community during the winter storm.
“I think it’s important to know that our community is resilient and that we do not just what’s best for us as individuals, but as a group in the Rio Grande Valley and I think that needs to be celebrated, because oftentimes we are just focused on the bad,” Lomeli said.
The sociology professor said her mother was scheduled for her second dosage of the COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 15 and was worried that she would have a bad reaction while the power outages were occurring.
Lomeli and her mother spent the night at her brother’s house because he had power and to keep an eye on her mother.
“I can laugh about it because it’s one of those things where we’ve lived so many tragedies over the years and, especially this last year, we had a lot of losses and so we were really concerned,” she said. “We were more focused on my mom, I think, than what was going on.”
Lomeli said all the food in her refrigerator went bad because she was out of power for three days.
Because her family was staying at her brother’s house, she said the greatest challenge was coming together and making food for all her family members given the lack of resources and her family’s specific diets and allergies.
“We were more focused on my mom and her health because we knew material stuff you can replace, but you can’t replace people,” Lomeli said.
The sociology professor said she enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with her family, something that has been rare since the pandemic.
“Because of quarantine, we really haven’t been spending much time together,” Lomeli said. “So, we had to be safe within those parameters.”
She said it was difficult to go through this situation and try to help others in the middle of the pandemic because people are trying to stay distanced.
“We have to see what’s the most immediate danger,” Lomeli said.
Asked what she believes could have been done to make her situation better, she replied, “Definitely a better situation with our power grid for Texas. It being more weather efficient for all weather, not just when it’s hot. So, that way, we wouldn’t have that overall power outage.”
Lomeli believes the harsh winter storm was a result of global warming.
“I think we’re gonna be seeing a lot of changes in what’s the norm of our climate because of what’s going on,” she said.
She said man-made issues are and will continue to change the weather anomaly if something is not done.
“We’re gonna have to be changing the way the infrastructure of our country works because we had this norm where these conditions won’t happen in Texas and now they are,” Lomeli said. “So, I feel like, yes, we are starting to see the effects of climate change.”
Asked why these blackouts happened, Abraham Quiroga, a business and employee development division manager for the Magic Valley Electric Cooperative, replied that the outages occured due to an overload of power use.
“What happened last week was, obviously, with the freeze, there was a lot more demand for energy, so that put a strain on our transmission system,” Quiroga said. “And then, there were a number of generators that went offline or that shut down for various reasons because of the cold weather, the ice and freezing equipment. So, because there was a lack of generation or a lack of energy on the market, [the Electric Reliability Council of Texas] called for rotating outages or rolling blackouts in order to ultimately protect the integrity of the entire system and keep it from completely keeping Texas in the dark.”
He said, as a cooperative, Magic Valley Electric does not have control of when the rotating outages happen. When ERCOT issues them, cooperatives must comply in order to lessen the load to protect the grid.
“This was a very unique situation in Texas,” Quiroga said. “We didn’t really have control over it, whether it’s us or AEP or Brownsville PUB, and the reality is this was a much bigger situation that really was out of our control.”
Cleiri Quezada, the senior communications and public relations coordinator at Brownsville Public Utilities Board, said the rolling outages happen due to an overload of energy and, in the worst case scenario, if energy is not conserved, the state will go into a blackout.
Quezada said on Feb. 18, ERCOT suspended power outages across the state.
“We experienced record winter temperatures across the state,” she said. “As a state, I’d say we probably were not ready because this winter storm came in late in the winter season, where we’re almost getting ready for spring. Also, frozen wind turbines throughout Texas, limited gas supplies and loss of additional generating units were all contributing factors to these rotating outages.”
At Wednesday’s ERCOT board meeting, officials confirmed the Texas power grid was just four minutes and 37 seconds away from a total blackout that could have potentially lasted several weeks.
