Abbott addresses Texas about last week’s winter storm power outages

(Texas News Radio) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott delivered a statewide address late Wednesday afternoon detailing some aspects of the state’s response to last week’s power grid failure.

“Tragic does not even begin to describe the devastation and the suffering that you have endured over the past week,” Abbott said in the address heard live on KTSA.  “Too many of you were shivering in your own homes with no power, no heat, and no water.”

He noted that he, too, was angry about what had happened and that like most Texans, he wants answers.

One answer the governor had Wednesday was about the state’s power grid manager.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, known as ERCOT, manages the flow of power in Texas. Before the storm hit, ERCOT repeatedly assured the state and the public that ERCOT was prepared,” said Abbott.  “Those assurances turned out to be false.  We now know that power generators of all sources were not prepared for this severe winter weather. We have also learned that ERCOT operators should have acted quicker to stabilize the grid and to prevent power generators from being knocked offline.”

The governor reiterated several announcements his office and other state leaders have already made in the aftermath of the widespread outages of investigations and hearings.

The state legislature will begin its hearings Thursday.

Among the actions the governor sought during the address were not shutting off power to customers because of high bills, an overhauling of ERCOT, and the mandate and funding for winterizing the power system.

“Power generation from all sources buckled under the harsh, freezing winter weather. That includes natural gas, coal, nuclear, as well as wind and solar. Each of these power sources failed to fully produce because of inadequate safeguards,” Abbott stated as his reasoning for mandated winterization.