It’s funny on the West Coast, I did my undergrad out there back in the day and like the whole city and even classes would shut down for the smallest amount of snow. No one has proper winter tires or knows how to drive on ice (hint: pump your brakes don’t slam them when on ice).
It’s kind of amusing as an Albertan seeing this and American media acting like the snow and a bit of cold is some catastrophic event. I mean, I guess it is in the sense that the power lines are down and just not used to the cold weather.
As an Albertan where it was literally -40 Celsius across the Province and upwards of -50 Celsius with the wind chill in some places I still came into my office and people went about their daily lives. Just tougher people in some regards I guess when you get used to growing up with this type of cold.
When it gets below -40 though that is ****ing cold, you immediately start coughing the second you step outside because of the cold air on your lungs and you can feel your nostrils starting to freeze within minutes. It’s a weird sensation.
When this happened 10 years ago in El Paso, they spent the money to winterize power plants. But El Paso is not part of ERCOT and they didn't have any electrical generation problems this year.
Texas, via ERCOT, is specifically avoiding complying with US Federal laws and this is the result.
It hit -10 F (-23 C) for a few nights in Milwaukee recently. We were below freezing temps continuously for 2 straight weeks. We had no power problems at all. We did have problems with finding places to put all of the snow that we received. The snow is piled up waist high here and down in Chicago. The lawns have 2 feet of snow, about as much as I can remember.
It was colder by Watertown, about 50 miles away, -17 F (-27 C) or so. For people from warmer climates, that temperature leads to frostbite in 10 minutes for any exposed skin.
Postponing hockey games in Dallas to conserve electrical power was the right thing to do. Not winterizing at least some of the power producing equipment was the wrong thing to do.
