Wednesday, December 15, 2021
In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri drove the Texas power grid to the brink of collapse, leaving millions without heat or water for days in record cold.
On this day in 2021, Winter Storm Uri pushed record cold deep into Texas, and demand for heat outran a power grid that had never been built for it. Generators failed as gas lines and equipment froze, and to keep the whole system from collapsing, operators cut power to millions of homes. What was planned as short rolling blackouts stretched into days.
The cold then found every weak point at once. Homes lost heat, pipes burst and flooded, water treatment plants failed, and boil-water notices spread across the state. Hundreds of people died, many from the cold itself or from carbon monoxide as they tried to stay warm with cars and grills.
The lesson is that even a modern grid can fail, and an extended power outage in a hard freeze becomes a heat and water emergency fast. A backup way to stay warm, stored water, and the knowledge to shut off and drain pipes are what carry a family through.
