For a couple of tense days earlier this month, it all came back like a bad dream. A winter storm rolled into Texas Feb. 3, dumping sleet and snow on northern parts of the state and leaving about 71,000 without power over the course of some 48 hours. A panicked public flooded grocery stores and gas pumps, venting their angst to friends, neighbors and on social media. In the end, Texas’ power grid held steady with 15,000 megawatts to spare — enough capacity to power 3 million additional homes, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates Texas' self-contained electrical grid and supplies power to more than 25 million residents. But the mini-crisis was a chilling reminder of the catastrophic failure that brought the state to its knees almost one year earlier. In what is widely accepted as the worst energy infrastructure collapse in Texas history, the state’s electricity market ground to a halt on Monday, Feb. 15, 2021, unleashing widespread shortages of water, heat and food, leaving more than 4.5 million homes and businesses without power — in some cases for days. It directly or indirectly caused at least 246 deaths, though some estimates put the number as high as 978. The toll on property was also devastating, and for some in commercial real estate, the costs keep coming. Read the full story here. | |  |
