In February of 2021, I was a first-grade teacher in Houston, TX. During the COVID pandemic, all my teaching was online. Without 22 little bodies running around the classroom, it felt cold. Like, it was literally cold. Cold in south Texas is usually a welcome creature, so everyone was excited when the local weather forecasters began salivating over the possibility of a freeze and even a dusting of snow. There was chatter about being able to work from home instead of our cold classrooms. Tuesday morning, we woke up to a slight dusting of snow, 17 degrees, and no power. No online teaching for me! The no-power thing really wasn’t all that surprising. We would frequently not have power. No one ever really knew why; construction was the usual scapegoat.

The kids were ecstatic. We found the box of snow gear, wool sweaters, outdated ski coats (some way too small), and the sleds. We hopped in the car to check on our good friends whose souls were born in Louisiana and not Colorado. We bundled them with our extras and headed to the area's one hill to sled. While the kids were living their best lives, we realized the power had been off for a while. Perhaps we should start to check on the water pipes.

The house, normally kept at 68, was now in the 50s. We opened all the cabinets where the pipes were in to keep them warm. We began letting the water drip in all the faucets. We pulled the grate off the bottom of our gas fireplace to see if there was a way to ignite it without the electrical switch. Hallelujah, you could, and it only required 2D batteries. We covered the windows with blankets.

The next day, for whatever reason, our tiny little section of the neighborhood had power for 90 minutes. We charged our cell phones. By the evening of the second day, everyone was becoming cranky. After checking in on friends, we heard we had the warmest house. So, despite being in the middle of the pandemic, we invited two families to stay with us. Our house was 54 degrees, and their houses were in the low forties. We had a giant slumber party with candlelight and camping lanterns. The adults played cards and drank some wine. The teenagers gossiped, the kids ran amuck, and the three dogs tolerated each other. Four out of the six adults were teachers. We hadn’t heard much from our district about when we would return to work.

Cell service was very spotty, and family members outside of our frozen zone were becoming concerned. The news was not painting a beautiful picture. By the third day, temperatures had warmed. Our pipes were fine, but many friends and neighbors had burst pipes and flooded houses. We were told to boil water. Power was rolling. We would have power for 60-90 minutes, then gone again for eight hours.  This went on from Tuesday until Sunday. Some schools in the district were damaged, so we didn’t return until Wednesday the 17th.

We were hearing that people had died from hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning, that Texas had been dangerously close to having the entire power grid shut down for months, and that it was ALL the wind turbine’s fault.

Now, I am practical and understand that Texas’ climate is generally hot and humid. Buildings are built to allow heat to escape. Yet, despite being warned in 2011 that the power grid desperately needed to be upgraded, it was not. Greg Abbott was on TV blaming ERCOT, and ERCOT blamed the Texas Railroad Commission. No one wanted to discuss how El Paso, part of the national grid, did not lose power. All sources of power struggled during the extreme cold. I lived in Broomfield in 2013. I remember the floods, they damaged my house. Unlike in Colorado in 2013, the messaging from Texas officials and the Trump administration was infuriating. None of it made logical sense, and it just seemed like climate change denialism and propaganda. The freeze itself, how poorly it was managed, and how nothing seemed to change were the catalysts for me to begin researching environmental policy.