Power Outages, Storms, and Tornados

How to endure another day in Texas

Yesterday, at around 12:30 in the afternoon, Paula and I sped home from the grocery store to let the dogs into the back yard and bring in the groceries as quickly as possible. The skies were darkening and the black haze brought that foreboding sense like it did a few days ago, when about 800,000 people lost power, some for more than 24 hours. That day, our lights only turned off for a minute or so that day, but once I started contacting friends about their power, I found out that some were without for quite a while. A few went to stay with relatives. A few found a hotel to stay at. Others managed to do without until Center Point, the energy company, came out to fix the problem. A few years ago, I purchased a power generator in case of hurricane type emergencies, but I’m thinking now that we should have went off the grid with solar and a backup. I saw a Youtube thumbnail that asked where tornado alley was changing course, but did not need to click on it to know the answer.

But yesterday was not as bad as a few days before. Our lights only dimmed. The internet router had to reboot, and we were left relatively unscathed. But I worried about all the people affected days before and their fears returning. Center Point reported 300,000 people without electricity this time. But this is not insignificant in the summer heat, where people have been known to die in their homes because of lack of air conditioning. On interstate 10 and Quitman Street in North Houston, an ocean of cars stopped still as the rain pushed itself across the 26 lane highway (yes, we love our cars in Tejas). In humility to the waves of water, they had to halt to nature’s agenda. There is no controlling the waters here. The years of hurricanes and flooding have proven this fact, but somehow our government is still unprepared. Yet, we, as a state, manage to spend our time on school boards, border crossings, book banning, and abortion bans. As state representatives leave during the Texas Winter Storm (2021), we as a people are left to fend for ourselves as if it were a Mad Max waste land. And still, there is deep denial in the Deep South as to our climate crisis and what we need to do as a people to find better ways to live in our little earth.

In North Texas, tornadoes have devastated the small town of Valley View in Cooke County, taking the lives of 7 people, including four children. The house where these people live was torn from its foundation. I heard a report of a lady who held onto doorknob for her dear life as the tornado ravaged through, she thinking that was the last day to live. My heart goes out for the people there. They will have to rebuild from nothing, and life will never be the same. As our earth changes, we can expect more tornadoes, storms, and hurricanes to come our way. And like many crises in Texas, the governor and state representatives will be there to say, “We’re praying” and that they will do something and go back to their offices and deny what is really going on in our world. The good news is that the small community will help each other out, and others outside of that community will aid, with or without the support of the state.

Houses torn to the ground by a tornado in Cooke county. Over 50 houses were devastated like this.

I’m not a climate change denier nor am I an alarmist. Unfortunately, this is a problem that many people will not face until it is too late. But for many of us, it is important that we, collectively, turn our energies (no pun intended) toward what is healthy and flourishing for our communities. Sign the petitions, call our representatives, write them annoying letters, and support those who want to do what will help us grow as people. This is about continued science based, education for our young people and helping others to flourish through generative communities. Texas is a state with an abundance of resources that could help us thrive. It is only the political will of the people that stops us from preparing for these environmental disasters. Believe it or not, Governors George W. Bush and Rick Perry were the ones that led the state in supporting clean energy, paving the way for Texas to have the largest wind farms in the country. Now, wind generates 26% of electricity in Texas according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Yes, these turbines can fail during an ice storm, but again we were unprepared because of intentional ignorance of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). And now there is a contingent of other Republicans in the state who adamantly oppose the creation of renewable energy. This was the backlash of populism in the state, and it will have devastating consequences. In the last few years, many of these representatives have written fictions about what people need or not need to convince their people how to live. Somehow, turbines are evil and solar is bad and communist China will and “illegals” are at our doorstep, so we should buy T-shirts that say this (by the way, those T-shirts come from China and made by Mexican labor).

So this is the state that I live in, and it is one that requires constant surveillance, not because of people outside of Texas, but those inside who govern it. It is a beautiful state of lush land and rolling hills, of tolerable beaches, but wonderful people from all over the world. When we lose power, we do not lose our love and support for one another. How do we heal humanity’s sin against nature? We start by healing the sin against ourselves, how we’ve hurt each other. To wrap the healing around the world, we need to bring the healing to ourselves, then to our neighborhoods, then our communities, and that might be the way forward.