"The graveyard doesn't lie:" The catastrophic failure of Texas's power grid

[Eugene]

This article was shown in the closing segment of The Eleventh Hour with Brian Williams.

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Source: Buzzfeed News

"THE GRAVEYARD DOESN'T LIE"

The catastrophic failure of Texas’s power grid in February killed hundreds more people than the state has acknowledged, a BuzzFeed News analysis shows.

Peter Aldhous
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Stephanie M. Lee
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Zahra Hirji
BuzzFeed News Reporter

The true number of people killed by the disastrous winter storm and power outages that devastated Texas in February is likely four or five times what the state has acknowledged so far. A BuzzFeed News data analysis reveals the hidden scale of a catastrophe that trapped millions of people in freezing darkness, cut off access to running water, and overwhelmed emergency services for days.

The state’s tally currently stands at 151 deaths. But by looking at how many more people died during and immediately after the storm than would have been expected — an established method that has been used to count the full toll of other disasters — we estimate that 700 people were killed by the storm during the week with the worst power outages. This astonishing toll exposes the full consequence of officials’ neglect in preventing the power grid’s collapse despite repeated warnings of its vulnerability to cold weather, as well as the state’s failure to reckon with the magnitude of the crisis that followed.

Many of the uncounted victims of the storm and power outages were already medically vulnerable — with chronic conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and kidney problems. But without the intense cold and stress they experienced during the crisis, many of these people could still be alive today.

This was the case for 80-year-old Julius Gonzales, his family believes. As dawn broke on February 15, he made his way to one of his regular dialysis appointments, only to find that the clinic had lost power and was closed. So the retired maintenance worker turned his Dodge Ram around and headed back to the mobile home he’d shared with his wife, Mary, in the small town of Arcola, Texas, for nearly 20 years.

So began the last 24 hours of his life.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/texas-winter-storm-power-outage-death-toll

[Blue Owl]

1. Remember how heroic Ted Cruz tried to sneak away to Cancun?

There should be a monument commemorating the historic moment...

[Skittles]

2. the "pro-life" party will not fix this

they spend their time humping guns and legislating uteruses

[Snackshack]

3. The GOP.

Has found a way to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and not be held accountable. Be the party in charge and then govern criminality negligently and disguise it as incompetence.

[DENVERPOPS]

4. GOP synonymous with Corporations

When you merge Corporatioons with Government, you get the text book definition of FASCISM.

That mess down in Texas is a perfect example of just that!!!!!!!!!!

[WhatTheFlux]

5. Death Print

151 deaths is more than twice the casualty count from Chernobyl. (The estimate of 4,000 future deaths is based on the debunked Linear No-Threshold (LNT) hypothesis.) Only one out of four Texas reactors had to shut down, due to freezing coolant water, and was started up less than 48 hrs later. Natural gas plants need their fuel piped to them, and those pipes froze, broke and leaked; reactors have two years' worth of fuel on-site and in the core. And yet, gas-backed renewables is still the accepted solution, while nuclear is seen as a fate worse than global warming.

[Lars39]

7. Welcome to DU, WhatTheFlux!

[Turbineguy]

6. They have a plan now.

More guns.