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Carmen Pena, right, waited for a ride Feb. 17 at the Rebekah Baines Johnson Center, an independent living center in Austin that lost power during the storm.Â
Montinique Monroe for The Texas Tribune featured When the power went out, Texas oil and gas regulators rushed to defend the industryâs image
By Erin Douglas and Mitchell Ferman Apr 5, 2021
4 hrs ago
Carmen Pena, right, waited for a ride Feb. 17 at the Rebekah Baines Johnson Center, an independent living center in Austin that lost power during the storm. Montinique Monroe for The Texas Tribune
When the power went out for Marsha Hendler on Feb. 15, she rushed to her downtown San Antonio office to ride out the winter storm. Thankful to find the electricity and heat still on, she typed out an email to the elected officials who regulate her small, independent oil and gas company.
Mike Hixenbaugh and Perla Trevizo
NBC News/The Texas Tribune and ProPublica
This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.
HOUSTON Mauricio Marin felt his heart tighten when the power flicked off at his Richmond, home on the evening of Feb. 14, shutting down his plug-in breathing machine. Gasping, he rushed to connect himself to one of the portable oxygen tanks his doctors had sent home with him weeks earlier to help his lungs recover after his three-week stay in a COVID-19 intensive care unit.
For some recovering COVID-19 patients, Texas outages threatened lives texastribune.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from texastribune.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Texas regulators and lawmakers knew about the grid’s vulnerabilities for years, but time and again they furthered the interests of large electricity providers.