Opinion: What We Can Learn From The Texas Snowstorm

In Texas, a system that’s unwilling to change meets a snowstorm that doesn’t care, actually.

Recently, for history class, I did a bit of research into the recent Texas snowstorm, looking for one number. I wanted to know how many people had died. I couldn’t find an exact number.

When people die, be that from violence, disaster, or disease, there are essentially two kinds of reactions. If the number of people who die is small, or if there is something or someone that can easily be blamed for their passing, we remember. We say the names of the victims and get to work, championing causes to leave a better world than the one that killed them.

If the number of people who die is large, or if the culprit is at all complicated, we become numb. Over 500,000 people have died in this country due to the pandemic. We grieve for those who were close to us, and all our little agonies add up to totality; grief so immense that it's impossible, in my view, to try and process the pandemic in its entirety.

All of this is to say that there’s a comfort to actually knowing how many have died. This number is key to if we are to truly process an event. But with Texas, almost a month has passed, and we simply don’t know. What kind of social order does that speak to? It would be appalling to hear that 50 people died, but at least we would know. How much chaos must there be for no one to know?

An article from CNN included a tweet from the city of San Angelo, advising residents of what to do with their water. It might be the best example of the chaos of the situation out there. “We have been advising people to drip their faucets to prevent pipes from freezing,” the tweet began, “however due to low water pressure and supply concerns, we are asking citizens to refrain from doing this as much as possible so that we can conserve as much water as possible.”

One side of my family lives in Georgia, which has been the origin of various jokes in my family. I’m reminded of a joking imitation of a bus driver, swerving to avoid a single snowflake. When I was younger, that idea was hilarious. But the world, as usual, is more complicated than we’d like. Southern states that don’t usually have to deal with our kind of winter weather do not maintain the resources required to do so in the event that a freak storm occurs.

Generally, there is opposition to changing the way things are done, because it’s a lot easier to make money in a system that’s understood. Climate change poses a threat in part because it contributes to these freak weather events. But it also poses a threat because our system is incredibly resistant to change. Climate change will get worse the longer we wait to act against it, throwing punches that we don’t even try to dodge.

It’s also important to mention that this happened in a pandemic. Say your power goes out, but your neighbor’s doesn’t. Normally, you might be able to lean on them until the crisis has passed. But now, leaning on your neighbor comes with the risk of contracting a deadly disease. You can’t go into their home because of the pandemic, and you certainly can’t hang around and chat outside, where people are freezing to death.

Lastly, combine this with a bit of, shall we say, “American spirit?” The government of Texas has refused to link up its power with the western national grid or the eastern national grid, as part of a crusade against regulation. Days into the blackout, former Texas governor Rick Perry, said that “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.” Rick Perry, of course, doesn’t speak for all Texans.

The quote, however, is from a blog post on House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s website. Rick Perry does speak, given his inclusion in the blog post, for the Republican party. The view that government is the enemy is a fairly mainstream opinion. Tackling it would require a far longer piece than this. But Texas does show one thing: a rejection of all order is an acceptance of chaos. We cannot fight this battle individually. We cannot survive climate change if we do not adapt. The question is what adaptation looks like, not if we have to.