As a blast of winter weather bore down on Texas last week, Texans braced themselves for a traumatizing repeat of Winter Storm Uri last February: days of huddling for warmth without power or water in the freezing cold.
Anxious shoppers packed grocery stores as the cold front approached. State and local officials, chastised for a lack of communication around Uri, blanketed the airwaves with warnings about the incoming winter weather. Gov. Greg Abbott warned Texans that no one could guarantee that power would stay on during the winter blast — two months after he promised it would this winter.
But as the sun rose Friday morning — when the state’s demand for electricity was expected to peak — most Texans breathed sighs of relief as they woke to find the lights still on and the water still running.
