"It Could Happen Again"

INVESTIGATIVE CATEGORY

Texas Monthly
01/18/2022

When an Arctic blast exposed the vulnerability of Texas’s power grid in February 2021, the ensuing statewide blackout became a historic calamity. Eleven million residents froze in the dark for as long as three days. As many as seven hundred died.

The disaster was not natural but man-made: officials had been repeatedly warned that the grid was vulnerable. Yet one year after the debacle, despite misleading claims from Governor Greg Abbott, nothing had been done to prevent another blackout, and industry executives were dodging regulations that had kept the lights on in other states hit by the same storm.

Enter energy reporter Russell Gold. To tell the story of what actually happened—and who was to blame—Gold used nearly every tool in the reporter’s kit: open records requests, data-driven journalism, and extensive interviews. What emerged was a clear-eyed, damning portrait of a disaster foretold. Months later, some credible regulations were finally put in place.

Gold stuck with the story, recently reporting that Texas leaders had shut renewables out in planning the grid’s future. His work on the grid’s precarity continues to be vital, but this ambitious piece, the definitive account of an inexcusable fiasco, stands on its own.

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Submitted by Alicia Maria Meier.