Elderly bear the brunt of Texas power outage catastrophe
The decision by ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) to initiate indefinite rolling blackouts across the state of Texas has taken its biggest toll on the elderly. Seniors particularly those dependent on Social Security benefits for housing, medicine, and essentials were in many cases trapped inside their homes, unable to leave and impossible to reach for days on end.
As of Wednesday, more than 1.3 million residents across 200 Texas counties remained without clean water in their homes, forcing them to boil water, wait in line for bottled water or purchase it at the store. At the peak last week, nearly 15 million Texans were under a boil-water advisory after widespread power outages knocked out water treatment and distribution across the state.